Wheezy
by lyin
Summary: George, without Fred. You get to live a lot, in nineteen years.
1. I

I.

There were still two beds. He woke up in mornings from the light through the blinds, without any mad scratching from across the room for a wand to close them tight or anyone leaping onto his bed to pummel him awake with pillows.

George Weasley pulled his red blanket over his head to ignore the wind at the window, the sun in his eyes, and the bell from the shop below.

Despite the idiom, the end of month weather was lion-like before dawn when the pounding on the door of the shop began to vibrate through the headboard.

He was unavoidably awake by then, but George's lashes remained stubbornly squinched shut.

There was a small explosion, several squawks, and then a succession of squelches with accompanying unpleasant aromas that wifted up into his room as the booby traps presumably dealt with any thieves, plunderers, and/or stingy mischief makers.

He sprang up, wand hand jerking instinctively for the familiar wood, and Summoned to his hand the most deadly device in the room, which happened to have the appearance of a rubber chicken.

Ginny Weasley flounced in, expression demure and wand smoking where it stuck out of her robe pocket. The only sign of any strain was the clashing pink glow spreading to the roots of her hair. She was holding a box that had a distinct aroma of its own, a considerably more pleasant one. "You're going to need a new doorknob," she said cheerfully. "_Quite_ the lock you had on it."

"Merlin's bearded testicle, Gin! There _is_ a doorbell- a fully functionable, non-incapacitating doorbell!" he exclaimed, tense muscles relaxing as he rubbed the sleep grime from his eyes.

"Right there is," she said, plopping down on the end of George's bed without preamble. "And the next time I fancy a beautifying Bogglingly Blackened Eye courtesy of the knocker, I'll ring it, too."

"There's a dousing with the coldest water this side of the Baltic from the door frame as well, now" he informed her, hand twitching towards the box. She slapped it away. "Very refreshing. I highly recommend it, especially after a morning constitutional. What brings you Diagonally, Ginny?" His careless tone was belied by the unspoken question.

_Mum send you? _

"Broomstick," she answered lightly, choosing to misinterpret the question.

"Ah," said George sagely, perching on his bedpost. Seeing as she'd been seventeen for a while now, this topic was becoming progressively bemusing. "What'd you splinch this time?"

"Left nostril," Ginny replied promptly.

"And?" he added expectantly.

She sighed long-sufferingly.

"And I wound up in Wales besides."

"Were there sheep?" he asked eagerly, entertaining visions of Ginny landing in rural farmer's fields dancing through his distractible mind.

Ginny eyed him drolly. "It may surprise you, George, but there are places in Wales devoid of sheep, bovines, and any dung thereof."

"Right, but what are the odds you landed in one of those?" he commented, then, frowning, paused. "Wait a tock. Isn't it a school day? Or d-did you pull a Weasley?" The last he managed to get out with only one heave of strangulation, smile maintained.

George was rather impressed with himself.

She rolled her eyes. "I headed out with help from Gregory the Smarmy and Harry's Firebolt. I'm fine as long as I'm back by morning." Detention held little power at Hogwarts this year, after the end of the last. Peeves'd cover for Fred Weasley's kid sister, too. "Anyways," Ginny said firmly, thrusting the white box at him as he opened his mouth to speak again, "Happy birthday, George."

He jabbed his wand at the calendar. "I'm not older just yet."

"Give or take a week," said Ginny dismissively.

"If it isn't edible or explodable, I'm not all that interested," George said, though he'd snatched the box towards him at once and was already shaking it.

It was true, really. He'd been given enough photo albums of him and Fred to fill a shelf in the shop (and they'd Enchanted the shelves for surprising depth), although he really didn't anticipate much difficulty forgetting his brother's face.

"It's both, but as there's frosting involved, I'd recommend the former," said Ginny dryly.

He peeked. "Oooh, you've been tickling the pear-"

"Harry helped-" she'd continued over him, cutting off as his eyebrows shot up.

"Hold up. _Hold up_. You've been tickling the pear with Harry??" his mouth contorted around the words in (mostly) mock disconcertion.

Ginny studied his seriously dangerous expression and burst into a fit of giggles.

"Tell me no honor compromising is going on under Ron's long nose," he threatened, once she'd sobered.

"That," said Ginny airily, stifling a giggle-hiccup as she plucked out a pastry, "is none of your affair."

"You're eating my gift," George observed, tugging the box back. "Knew we ought to give him a talking to… w- I've been intending to chat with him on that same topic for a wh- _you've **had** one_!"

Ginny successfully wheedled a torte from the box. "There's more to it, anyhow."

"Oh?" said George, not half as lightly as he would have liked.

She stared at the few freckles on her hand following the line between thumb and wrist and flexed her fingers before brandishing half the torte in a magnanimous gesture. "George, I've plotted out your takeover of Gambol & Japes. And I think you should fire Lee."

His mouth dropped, then dropped a bit further at the last bit, and unhinged an extra notch he hadn't thought possible at the defiant expression on his sister's face. She steamrolled forward. "Not that Lee's not doing spiffing- though the books need work. Verity really mucked up the books."

"I shouldn't have fired her," George muttered to himself. He missed her, but she couldn't adjust to working with just him, George, and not Fred-and-George. It was getting her considerably too clingy. He couldn't do clingy. "Or we shouldn't have hired her, I haven't worked that out yet…" They hadn't exactly hired her for her brains. They'd been rather chuffed when she'd turned out to have some. However, they were rather un-mathmatically inclined. "What've Gambol & Japes done to you, to deserve such enmity from my favorite sister?" he demanded, before she unsubtly suggested – once more- he take Percy up on his offer to help him on the, well, boring bit of running a business.

"Only sister," she said, tempering the compliment, but her lips turned up in the corners anyhow. "Unless you've got another locked up in the broom shed. As to Gambol & Japes, I have on good authority-"

"It's not Luna, is it?" George interrupted suspiciously.

"-on **_good authority_** that Dr. Filibuster's latest have a distinctly wheezy quality."

He went sharply, dangerously still. It was this way all the time now. The way he wouldn't, couldn't stop moving was bad enough, but when George froze back over, whiskey-foam eyes fizzling to a flat glare, Ginny's stomach rolled over. "Wheezy?" he repeated, voice rasping.

She stared back at him gravely. "You have to remember to watch," Ginny noted solemnly, "who you sell to."

It was an echo of the words told them after Dumbledore's death, all that business with Malfoy and the Peruvian Anti-Darkness Powder they couldn't bring themselves to sell afterwards.

"How wheezy?" he asked sharply.

"I think you'd better come with me," said Ginny, pulling up the hood of her robe. She eyed his distinctively red hair. "Grab a hat."

"Ginny, how wheezy??"

They could not touch their ideas. They would not. George would not let them. Granted, they weren't precisely properly patented according to Ministry guidelines, but they were his, and Fred's. Anyone would ripping them off was about to come to a fresh understanding of _paying dearly_. He'd rip their thieving minds out through their nostrils. "Accept no cheap imitations," he muttered darkly to himself.

Ginny waited a moment as he clenched and unclenched his hands. She conjured a hat from her wand when he stayed in place and adjusted it over his brow with a very Mrs. Weasleyish look set on her pretty face.

George watched her uncertainly, having half-expected for a year she'd ask him and get him to bring Fred round. "You want in?" he asked, gruffly.

"No," she said, regretfully. "I've got someone better for you."

George understood her meaning perfectly. "No! No! NO! That's the fastest way to hurtle the business down a bog! I've heard enough about _Weasley's Wizard Chess_- such blooming…" He progressed into a series of swear words in Gobbledygook, Troll, and possibly Gnomish, he wasn't sure about the last. It might also have been Bulgarian, but whatever it was, the invective grunts were surprisingly satisfying. After a few minutes of steely silence from his sister, he started feeling slightly stupid. "Why?" he muttered at last.

"Because he'll be good at it," she said coolly. "And sorry to correct you, but letting Percy regulate your WonderWitch line is the quickest way to bog up the shop." She lifted her chin, expression fierce. "Fred, I'm sure, would be thrilled you've let it go down the chute on your lonesome."

George clapped his mouth shut. She couldn't have silenced him more if she'd Silenced him.

"I'd help myself," Ginny added, "but the Wanderers and Harpies have been showing some interest in me."

"Felicitations," George offered, reeling.

She shrugged contentedly. "Ron?" she put to him.

"Ronniekins'll have to ask me himself." The viciousness of his tone threw him. Last he'd heard it, Fred was discussing Umbridge.

She waved that off expectantly. "He'd have my broomstick for kindle wood if he knew I was cuing you in. You'll let Ron in?"

He cast his eyes ground-ward, licking his suddenly dry lips. "Can we head to Gambol & Japes already?" Without waiting for an answer, he strode towards the stairs, shoulders raised unhappily.

"George?"

He turned to study his sister's pursed lips and concerned face, thinking of Fred's burrowing frown when he'd wanted to blackmail Bagman.

He blew air out of his cheeks and beckoned towards the stairs. "Well of course," he said grumpily, voice becoming progressively snarly. "It's a_ family_ operation." It'd probably look good to have a Weasley around with both ears, at any rate. Parents of witchlets and wizardlings already expressed enough concerns about safety hazards.

She opened her mouth behind his back as he leaped the stairs, three, four at a time. If he wasn't a wizard he'd have shattered his ankles.

"But we're keeping Lee." Probably not the best time to mention the contract his friend kept turning down from the WWN because he was preoccupied keeping Fred and George's shop afloat, Ginny decided, seeing the quiet desperation in his face when he flicked his head over his shoulder to catch her gaze. "Percy," said George, "can leave my books alone- _I have a system_- and if Ron wants to help, he can round up the pygmy puffs." Percy could probably help with the patent bit though, George reflected, and it was probably best not to be testing all the products on himself anyhow. He'd see what Ron thought of those Sugarspun Spiderwbes…

The shop, as they rounded down into it, looked even more awry with the door off. He wasn't sure what sort of charms Verity had done to keep the dust off, but it seemed to keep coming back when he tried it. The dust was against him. A pygmy puff rolled forlornly across the floor.

"You lost the pygmy puffs?" Ginny exclaimed, looking deeply wounded at the missing adorability.

"Not lost," George corrected absently. "They're here. Somewhere." He realized, as he almost tripped over a box of Canary Creams that looked eerily appealing, that his stomach was rolling thunderclouds of misery towards his brain. He wasn't sure when he'd eaten last.

Straightening himself, George swung on the lurid green dragon-hide jacket hanging by the remains of the shop door- the jacket whose twin he'd had Fred buried in- and readjusted his hat. "Oi," he said with consideration. "What happened to those pastries?"


	2. II

a/n: thanks to all reviewers, and if you're reading, i'd love a line to let me know what you think. enjoy- timeline wise, the first piece is end of the first year (march), this is shortly into the second year without fred (approx. august)

II.

One night he headed for Grimmauld Place, hurting for food and family but not enough to burrow to the root of it. Ron'd insisted he take the night off and that he'd close up, and had extended an invitation to Harry's. Harry probably was unaware of this, but worst case scenario he was interrupting a highly romantic double date with candelabras and singing dwarfs. George actually hoped so, it would make gate-crashing even more distractingly entertaining.

He'd always liked Harry. Doubted he could cook, though. He thought longingly of his mother's cooking but reaffirmed his destination with a thought of her teary-eyed lip-trembling in his direction amid the strawberry shortcake last time he'd gone home for dinner.

Besides, Mum'd only fuss since he'd gotten the eyebrow blown off a few hours back, forgetting he had to watch his own left side, when skittering around a brawl in Green Dragon Tavern.

It was much easier to stay in London, away from home cooking and gnome gardens and corners where a young Fred and George could come reeling round the bend out of memory, smelling of sulfur and howling with laughter.

He walked in the unlocked door when he got no answer at the doorbell and nearly jumped out of his skin. Something small was moving very quickly across the floor. "Whoa! What's that, a dog or a cat or something?" he asked loudly, shaking it off.

Andromeda Tonks shot him a particularly nasty look that reminded George incredibly of Narcissa Malfoy.

He realized, then, that Teddy Lupin was crawling at a practically surreal speed across Harry's plush new carpet.

Harry was glad to welcome him, though Ginny wasn't there as he'd half-expected. Hermione was visiting, clutching a book on child care, and Neville as well, who greeted George to his shock with a surprisingly strong bear hug. He'd been at Mungo's earlier and seemed strangely protective of everyone.

The baby- toddler, really, who could walk too but did so under protest- was there for the night.

Upon his arrival, Andromeda looked even more nervous about letting Teddy stay while she dealt with a "personal matter". Neville, mouthing across the room, either suggested he provide Teddy with 'toys' or informed George it had to do with the 'Malfoys'. He assumed the latter but nevertheless produced a Nicely Nibbling Teacup from his left robe pocket, which made Teddy giggle with delight (hair bubbling to his mother's bubblegum pink) as it gnawed gently on his chubby little toes. George pretended her nerve-wracked gaze wasn't taking in his missing ear and recently scorched brow with motherly concern.

He let it slide without comment. Tonks' mother was clearly ill at ease in the house of her forbearers, even though Harry'd remodeled. He'd expanded the hallway by having Ron demolish the walls and Hermione remove them, preserving the pieces with Permanently Stuck heads of Kreacher's predecessors and entrusting them to him somewhere where they were a bit less in one's face.

Hermione, patching up George's eyebrow, began to loudly voice concerns the moment she'd assured Andromeda out the door. Granger seemed unlikely to leave anytime soon.

"I was entrusted with the fate of the wizarding world, and you don't trust me with my godson?" Harry finally exclaimed, exasperated.

Hermione sized him up, hands on her hips. She pursed her lips. Then she trained her eyes on Teddy, who was at Neville's startled feet like a small Crup, chewing on one of his shoelaces. Neville could not have been wider-eyed or more immobile if she'd Petrified him. Teddy's nose scrunched smaller in size by a good few inches as he apparently found the taste unpleasant. "No," she said, quite certainly.

George smirked, but it changed to something like awe as Teddy headed off for new ground at progressively increasing speed. "Say, Harry," he asked curiously, mentally ticking off seconds and gauging the distance. "Got your watch on you?"

Ron arrived after store hours, trying to be grumpy because he hadn't had anything to eat and they'd forgotten about eating in favor of timing the boundless Teddy. He perked up to tease Hermione for canceling dinner plans for another bloke- namely, one with currently teal hair rainbowing up to indigo.

Under Ron's encouragement, they took turns attempting to cook in the wizarding fashion, because the Grimmauld kitchen was never intended for Muggle cooking, the way both Hermione and Harry were familiar with. Ron, George, and Neville were still somewhat unaccustomed to feeding themselves. Neville had wondered why Kreacher wasn't cooking, but Hermione hurriedly suggested otherwise. The house-elf was apparently slipping in his age, and despite his bright intentions, eating his constructs was not really in their stomachs' best welfare at the moment.

No one suggested George cook. They'd learned long ago not to take any food he offered, especially when his eyes glittered. There was a certain luster to them tonight, certainly, though he owed that to earlier in the evening.

Hermione, when she tried, produced a perfectly formed and completely alive fowl. She shrieked and hollered too much for George's good ear when Ron tried to subtly sneak a knife from the multitude of sharp skewers leftover from the Black years.

The chicken got away, disappearing somewhere into Number 11 Grimmauld.

She was equally unamused when George suggested feeding the grey lump Ron managed to conjure to Kreacher. Harry was too busy giving the baby a bottle, tickled he'd actually taken it and obsessing over its temperature worse than Hermione, to pay any attention. "He likes me," he repeated, in rapture, lifting Teddy to watch his eyes go emerald green when they met his own.

Clearly, he was useless.

"You give it a go, Neville," encouraged Ron, who seemed completely unaware he was licking his chops.

He looked dubious, but followed suit. "_Comeditus_," he tried uncertainly, although the charm was really meant to be non-verbal, and a turkey of no great size- but with a fantastic smell- sprouted.

It was both very well done and decidedly dead, so its edibility was agreed upon and they dug in.

Immediately it was apparent the meat was neither turkey nor particularly appetizing. Nor necessarily actual meat. The gristle took some chewing, but it grew on George.

"Eight and two-thirds seconds," Harry noted on Fabian Prewett's watch as Teddy zoomed under the table.

George's youngest brother was thoroughly absorbed by his speed, as he was seeing it for the first time. "We should buy him a broomstick," he advanced.

"Yeah!" said Harry, sitting bolt upright.

"Harry!" cried Hermione, scandalized.

"In a few more months," he added. "Did Lupin or Tonks play at all?"

They looked around at each other, realizing none of them had any idea, unfamiliar with that chapter in the histories of their friends. The silence was uncomfortable.

George coughed. "Well," he offered limply. "If he takes after his mother, I'd give him a couple years to stay up on it before you start plotting to have him play for England…"

Harry, with Seeker reflexes, snatched up the little Lupin as he scurried from underneath his godfather's chair. He was making for the pretty red light in the fireplace.

"He's a very coordinated crawler," Neville offered, shrugging. Then he grinned. "According to Gran, though, so was I."

They all cracked up, except Teddy, who hiccuped. Hermione's laughter turned quickly into cooing. She made to get up to grab him, but Ron beat her there, scooping up the baby with an almost calamitous casualness and swinging him around while making a whooshing broomstick noise.

George and Hermione watched for the inevitable thud, one with anticipation and one with trepidation.

However, he didn't drop him, merely swiveled him about. George, finding himself disturbingly disappointed, turned back to his food as Ron held Teddy up to scrutinize at arm's length. "Harry, you know, with the hair black like that, he looks like Padfoot a little."

George choked on his tofurkey. Harry had to leap up and clap him on the back.

Hermione paid no attention, clucking disapproval. "Honestly, Ron-"

"I don't mean as a dog!" he protested. Teddy had been treated like something small and fluffy a few too many times that night.

"I should think-" Hermione tutted.

"Alright, mate?" asked Harry quietly.

He reached for a glass of water and drained it. George cleared his throat a few times. "I'll live."

Dinner progressed more smoothly when Neville changed the topic, asking if anyone had heard from Luna since she went traveling, opting not to write for the Quibbler after school. From her letters, it sounded as if she was looking into Hairy MacBoons, which everyone else generally called Quintapeds or the 'horrible furry things with five legs and the nasty gnashing teeth'.

They sincerely hoped she'd be back, and intact, but since Luna had insisted she wouldn't return until she'd found her nargles…

George, however, had fallen into a brood and was entirely unconscious to the topic of discussion, which left Hermione casting worried glances at him and Ron trying to provoke a reaction by making unnoticed faces at him. The two of them were the first to leave, despite Hermione's earlier protestations of leaving Teddy alone with Harry. They headed out the door, Ron making bombast good-byes to Harry and Hermione struggling to keep her composure and finish her conversation with Ron's other hand tangled comfortably into her hair and easing her out the door.

"See," George whispered to Neville, winking knowingly though he felt blank inside. "They're in _that_ phase of the relationship."

He stuck his fork in the mashed potatoes forcefully when Longbottom wasn't looking, twisting it with satisfaction until it scratched violently against the plate and both Harry and Neville turned to stare.

Teddy burst into tears.

"I'm getting a drink," George announced, as he remembered where Sirius had hid the firewhiskey Remus hadn't taken from him.

Harry's green eyes flickered to him, then back to Teddy, before nodding assent.

"Neville?" the Weasley twin asked.

"Aah," said Neville uncertainly, as he was Apparating home.

"No," George assured him, "it won't turn you into a big yellow bird. It_ could_ make you think you're one… Butterbeer?"

"Yes, please," said Longbottom, with relief.

He knew better than to ask Harry, but George tripped his way hurriedly into the kitchen and poured a deep glass for himself. Considering, he drew his wand and cast it back into the bottle, and seized the bottle instead.

He tossed the butterbeer at Neville, who fumblingly caught it, triumphantly saving it from shattering on the floor. It was a surprisingly good catch, as George had intended him to miss.

Closing his eyes, he slugged three mouthfuls back. The firewhiskey burned its way down his throat, bursting behind his eyelids like a Whiz-Bang gone awry.

Neville and Harry kept talking but their voices slunk away from his ear, Snitches moving too fast to catch on his beat-up old broomstick.

He loved his broomstick, that Cleansweep Five, and Fred's too, since they traded off plenty. They had a couple bendy old Shooting Stars of Perkins' from Dad's office to practice on after outgrowing their toy broomsticks, but when the two of them went off to Hogwarts they understood for the first time where they fit in, wearing Percy's outgrown robes that were too tight and Charlie's that fell short. They knew what it would take to make the team second year, because Charlie was phenomenal but at the worst of times could be outstripped by a better broomstick. They'd scrimped for them, selling their Christmas gifts from Aunt Muriel and overcharging their year-mates for butterbeer and sweets they'd pick up in Hogsmeade whenever they felt like it. They would never have afforded them by themselves, but they came up with enough for half of one. Charlie would have left them his, but they begged and pleaded and reminded him broomsticks were wood and dragons breathed fire. He gave them the money for his new broomstick, because Quidditch was already his past and their future. From there it was more imitating Percy, in the best of ways, and polite, carefully timed requests, and Mr. Weasley caved and bought a broomstick.

…Harry and Neville were muttering something, asking him something. He nodded, smiled, and mulled over the firewhiskey, which on second thought he took another swig of…

They bought the other, and marched their way onto the Hogwarts Express clutching them, like half the other second years relieved to finally bring their broomsticks to school.

Fred had gleefully spun a tale to Lee, Angelina and Kenneth Towler, of their daring escapade across Ottery St. Catchpole's quiet skies which sounded more like a zoom above an airport.

George'd thrown in the hot air balloon.

Fred had added they'd popped it-

-but still managed to save the Muggles-

- Muggle _women_, Fred hastily dashed in zestily-

-before they hit the ground-

-well, I should _hope_ so-

Angelina'd interrupted then, to ask with a skeptical eye, how they'd wiped the Muggles' memories.

George, as usual, had looked to Fred, hopefully imperceptibly.

Why, they'd fainted, Fred'd said easily, and proceeded to swoon into his brother's waiting arms.

He missed-

"George!" Harry half-bellowed, his emerald eyes flaring. He was in George's face, having risen from his chair in concern after his friend had proceeded to drain the bottle in a go or two.

He blinked furiously, absorbing their sincere and concerned looks.

George swallowed and set the bottle down, spinning and teetering on the tabletop.

He needed to say something funny, but Fred wasn't there to give him his cue. "Whoops," he said, laughing nervously. "Think Sirius' – or should I say Padfoot's- stash malted too-" He stopped, the pity in the back of their eyes too much. "Y'know, mates, I'd best shove off-" He stopped, wondering why his feet weren't on the ground.

"Hang on to Teddy," Harry said to Neville casually, plopping the baby on his lap.

George realized then the chair was tipped back onto its hind legs, and slammed it and himself forward with a thud. He pushed himself up, waving Harry off, but his friend- brother's friend, he corrected- gripped his arm in the stern, friendly way he and Forge had grabbed Percy on a Christmas a long time ago.

He thought Harry would take him to the porch outside, into the Muggle world, and see him safely home. Or worse, call his Mum, who would cry.

Instead he walked him up the stairs, tugging him and threatening under his breath to float him along if he didn't come quietly. Soon enough they were at a room George had not entered the summer he stayed there.

His vision blurred, and he was suddenly seated on a bed, staring at the not-jiggling breasts of a still girl in a bikini that had probably been a vibrant pink before the poster started to fade.

Harry's hands were clasped behind his back, facing away from George. He followed his gaze with a frown as Harry sighed and sat down next to him.

There was a picture of four boys tacked high on the wall. One looked like Harry, one looked like Lupin before life had a few cracks at him.

One was handsome in a way that would have made Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell giggle desperately and Fred roll his eyes at him. He recognized the smirk from the vestige he had known as Sirius Black.

The other boy, he'd never seen before in his life.

"That's my dad," Harry said quietly, pointing, as if George was blind, not half-deaf, and couldn't tell.

He grinned, slightly, when he saw George's pained expression. "I've been told I resemble him slightly. Once or twice."

"Thrice, maybe," George suggested weakly, throbbing. "So," he said conversationally, or what he hoped sounded as much. "That's them, then. In the-" Not flesh, he decided. "Moving print?"

"The Marauders." Harry's voice was a study in melancholy, wistfulness, and faint reproach.

"Flashy," George agreed with nobody. "We did alright with 'Weasley', but then they didn't have the-" He struggled, having planned something nifty to say there but lost it in its slow path from his mind to boggy tongue.

"No," Harry said slowly, scratching his head absently. "They weren't brothers by blood."

Rubbing blood into his face, George stared at the long-gone boys, some of whom he'd known as men. He studied the lineless faces, the twinkles in the eight eyes, the broad grin of trouble he knew too well.

"I always figured you knew," the young man who had been a boy who lived muttered abashedly, self-critically.

"Nah," George dismissed, trying to brush easily at the air and whacking Harry's ear instead. He frowned judgmentally at his misbehaving hand. "Busy. Gathering doxy dung, whatnot, sneaking round Mad-Eye- tell yah what, I'd a been a bit more willing to sing along with poor ol' Sirius on 'House Elf, Go A-Wassailing' if- I- wow." He considered the picture and Harry's studiously calm features. "We were _thick_." Moony the werewolf, Padfoot the big black dog galloping around Grimmauld, the number of times they'd seen Harry's Patronus in DA meetings…

"Ron never told you?"

"Maybe tried. We don't listen to him much," he said listlessly. "I do now," he amended, voice slipping in decibel to almost nothing.

He had always thought of the Marauders as part of a distant past, long old or dead. Fat and happy with small grandchildren whose teddy bears they regularly turned into spiders, for gits and shiggles. Possibly part owners of Zonko's.

This was positively depressing.

"Who's the fat kid?" he asked abruptly, with a sick feeling that wasn't from the alcohol.

"Worm-" Harry interrupted himself, under George's continued 'painfully obvious' look. Harry's jaw clenched itself, and his wand hand flexed unconsciously. "Peter Pettigrew."

The real Secret Keeper who Sirius Black had supposedly killed. Mum had explained that, back in the 'why we're going to stay in the house of a mass murderer' period.

"Scabbers," Harry elaborated, under his look. George frantically rubbed at his face again. "You really didn't listen to Ron much," Harry said, amazed.

Percy had been displeased over the fate of his old pet, which they had all been certain of. "Crookshanks _ate_ him," George said weakly, bewildered, and vaguely tried to listen as Harry began talking, his firm, business voice something solid to grasp beside from the grinning faces of four boys as dead as Fred.

Harry had taken a lot for granted, but pieces rang familiar as elements he knew clicked with what he didn't. Apparently neither Ron nor Dumbledore particularly wanted to inform the family Weasley they'd housed for more than twelve years a Death Eater responsible for the return of Voldemort as well as, directly, the deaths of Harry's parents. George wished he'd known, even so.

He put his head in his hands, because it was very heavy and the alternative would be to cry in front of Harry Potter. Which would feel darn stupid.

"They could have told us how they made the map," he found himself moaning. "Y'know how much we could make selling copies?"

Harry half-jumped from the bed in surprise, then broke into a choking laughter that died when George snorted into his hands.

"Wish he-"

"He knows," Harry assured him immediately, because he too was getting desperately nervous about George crying in front of him. "Lupin maybe, or Sirius- possibly my dad- one of them'd have broken it to him-"

He was sitting up at once. George was staring holes into him, expression fevered.

Harry stammered. "I did die," he offered at last, throat trembling. "They're still there."

George looked away for a long minute, finally locking his eyes with Sirius Black's photographic ones to avoid Harry's examination. He bit the inside of his lower lip to keep it from trembling. "He's not _here_."

Harry grasped his wrist, then his hand as if they were about to arm wrestle. At last George met his gaze. He felt very drunk and deeper, lost, but Harry Potter has become the sort of man who could anchor quite a lot of trouble. "George," he said seriously. "There will be no hurling yourself in any lakes, as you'll probably get chucked back out by giant squid anyhow."

He chuckled, warily. "Fred'd be the one getting soaked. He had the flair."

"So do you, mate," said Harry, with a wavering grin.

"Is this," said George wearily, sliding his arm free, "the part where you say I'll be alright?"

"No," his friend replied, earnestly solemn this time as he lept to his feet. Harry was a pacer, he looked poised to get started. "I hope you'll be, but… that's up to you, George." The twin did a confused double-take as Harry's eyes flicked to the young Marauders, Sirius in particular. "I can't tell you what Fred'd want you to do, but you'd know, I reckon."

The worst part is that he doesn't, really. Because they weren't the same person, not really, because he and Fred endlessly surprised and surpassed each other. He can't finish his own sentences, because he can only guess- though he's probably right- what Fred would say.

"I still think we could do with more laughs in the world," Harry said. "And as far as I knew him, I think Fred would say the same."

George nodded, weary. He was trying. It was hard.

He gathered, from his expression, that Harry got that. "I hope you don't mind staying here," Potter offered after a silence. "Neville'll want to be getting home, and I'm no great hand at Side-Along Apparition. I think it goes without saying you won't be Apparating or Flooing home from my house."

Home. Funny thing. He decided to pretend he hadn't noticed Harry pocketing his own trusty, prank-friendly wand, until morning, at any rate. "Wouldn't want to lose another ear," he said off-hand, flopping on the bed, which was lumpy. Harry Potter stifled a laugh.

"Promise me," said George without looking up, "I won't wake up to find my sister wandering around here in her nightie."

"Promise," said Harry, resolving to insure Ginny knew not to swing by after the team meeting after all and hoping she wasn't already downstairs chatting with Neville. Kicking her out for her brother would be awkward, but it was an honor code, sort of, though he supposed he could get around the wording of it… "G'night, George."

"Night, Harry."

The door closed behind him with a resounding click. George thought he might get under the covers, but his head was muzzy and limbs leaden, so he stayed where he was.

He didn't know how long he stared at the ceiling, watching James Potter mess up his hair and glance outside the photograph and Remus Lupin silently laugh as George had never seen him laugh in life, not with Sirius around Grimmauld, not with Tonks.

Of course he might not have been looking.

Sirius Black ruffled Pettigrew's hair and beamed at him, or whoever was taking the picture.

George tried not to think of Colin Creevey, and Dennis with his forlorn eyes.

Instead he focused on the Marauder's Map, their first year at Hogwarts, the handwriting of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs scrolling across the bit of old parchment and remembered how Fred had crowed in delight, and how the two of them had done a jig atop of the sleeping Lee Jordan in the middle of the night.

He'd cursed them silly, naturally, but the boils faded, while the delight hadn't. Ever.

At last he forced himself to his feet to flick off the aching light, then collapsed onto the stiff old mattress.

Ignoring his burning eyes, he laughed himself to sleep.


	3. III

A/N: I cheated- this isn't quite the third year post-Battle of Hogwarts yet. Try still in the second year- about 1 ½. It was planned as two and a half, but writing and looking at it, I want it a year and half. I_ think_ that works out better timeline wise. But it still gives the sense I wanted it to give. Next chapter it goes to rights- four years for four, etc. Timeframe's holidays, but not yet Christmas. George is going on (and Fred would've been) twenty-two.

Thanks to all reviewers, your comments mean a ton- it's ridiculous how excited I get to see responses come in. ;) To all reader_s_- please drop a line telling me what you think, because it really does contribute to the process, feedback churns my ideas round. :)

See you all again soon, and enjoy.

III.

It took a second to register the request because of the side it was coming from, but George handed over the yams with a grin, making another pun.

"Thank you, Fred," Mrs. Weasley said absently, eyes still half-on the baby. Her hand, in the process of taking the dish, jerked at once to her mouth as her face turned an unappealing gray.

The other side slipped easily from George's frozen hand, and despite a table full of witches and wizards, not a wand stirred to stop it from shattering on the floor.

The table fell at once into ill-settled silence, with only Victoire's gurgling as she tried to pluck off Bill's scarred nose breaking into the disquiet.

"Oh," Molly gasped, sucking for air, "oh," and reached a trembling hand towards George, whose brows had disappeared up into his hair, before snatching and crumpling the nearest napkin. She rushed, sobbing, in towards the kitchen; chairs scraped as half the Weasley boys, their father, and Harry simultaneously leapt to their feet. Fleur shrieked out alarm as Victoire's sleek strawberry-silver head bobbled in her father's arms.

"'S alright," George waved them off, getting up slowly. His voice was a startling keel of calm. He looked amazed himself, clapping his chest to clear it before continuing. He signaled expansively with a spoon. "I've got this one, gents. Can somebody salvage the yams?"

He whistled his way after her. The cheerful tune prompted an exchange of looks between Ginny and Charlie, who was in from Romania for Christmas.

George ran his fingertips along the wall as he entered, luxuriating in the feel of the familiar wood even through the still-swollen pads from the bubotuber pus he'd tinkered with earlier. There, the dent where Charlie had headbutted the wall the first time he'd yanked his chubby little self onto Bill's toy broomstick and attempted to abscond into the backyard, but missed the open door. The incident was his first solid memory, he reckoned, after Fred. The blood from Charlie's forehead had been awful, he thought some was still in the carpet. The scorch marks around the kitchen door frame were more recent, from the implosion of pre-funding fireworks that had blown a whole stash of personally designed fake wands when their mother had confiscated the lot.

He dallied only long enough to produce one of his father's handkerchiefs from the cupboard where Arthur tucked a handy supply. Molly Weasley, nee Prewett, was sobbing on an awkwardly situated stool in front of the oven.

His footsteps hit the wood harder than they needed to, to warn her of his approach. She looked up, swollen eyed. There was a soaked napkin on the floor, and a mass of yarn in her lap.

He paused, because she was not tearing up in the usual manner. He hadn't done anything wrong and had no guilt-stricken apology to mutter grudgingly out, and no sighing or whining would goad her out of it into a temper.

George, failing to think of anything else, grinned at her idiotically.

The reddening whites and brown irises apparent behind her soaked lashes turned glassy behind a new well. "Am I a terrible mother?" Mrs. Weasley choked out.

That rocked him in its sheer absurdity. He hoped she still didn't think he was Fred. "Mum!" he exclaimed, thoroughly scandalized. "That's _ridiculous_- y- you're smashing."

Her lips failed to turn up, trembling still. "I- if I'd been better-"

He shook his head, almost angrily, and strode towards her. George crouched down in front of her, rocking on his heels, and reached for her hands, but couldn't get to them. He found his hands tangled in a half-made jumper, and looked up questioningly.

Mrs. Weasley's features crumpled. "Fred's- Christmas- ," she trailed off jerkily, shuddering. "With Muriel here- and- I never got you your jumpers that- that year-"

"Mum," he said lovingly, patting her hand through the soft lump. "You're getting the yarn soggy."

She burst into tears again, and he produced the handkerchief with a flourish. She pulled it to her at once.

He waited impatiently as her cheeks streamed for her to dry up, then finally began speaking again anyways. "Please don't tell me all this is about jumpers-"

"His last Christmas, George," she whispered, fully formed drops splattering down onto his freckled hand. "And my-my baby will never wear anything I make for him again. Fred won't roll his eyes at me or eat my corn beef, even when it was too dry- or d-degnome the garden- oh, _George_-"

He felt moisture on his cheek and wondered at that, because his mother's tears hadn't bounced that far. He tasted salt against his lips and realized, with some amazement, he was crying. "Mum," he said, voice throbbing. "I'll come home more. I can degnome the garden and eat your corn beef, though I don't know if I can tucker down enough for us both if I want to stay in Quidditch condition. Though don't cut my hair, Charlie's home and you can do him- Please don't cry anymore, Fred wouldn't want that- we hated to make you cry-"

She wiped desperately at her eyes with the handkerchief as her shoulders shook. He Summoned the whole lot from the drawer, turning with an "_Accio_," and remembered her stripping them of their early products.

"I wanted soo- soooo badly," she choked, "to watch you all grow up. Fred will always be twe-"

"That's why you're lucky to have me," George said brightly, tears dangling from his chin, "because you can see where he'd have been, going on twenty-two-"

"You are not a spare!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked, words arching and wavering dangerously. She was so frantic and adamant on this point that George nearly rocked himself onto his back in surprise.

Oh. That was why they hadn't had this conversation a year and a half ago.

"I should think not," he managed, cracking an amused smile, "and you are not," George continued fiercely, "in the remotest sense a terrible mother-"

Her blotchy face looked pained, and to him, suddenly older, despite joshing all night about her youthful beauty looking far too young for a grandmother. "I called you Fred," she said, shaking her head, and he could practically see what she'd say behind her eyes: _A mother should always know her children, I should never have treated you interchangeably the times I did, kept you straight, every minute… how much I loved him…_

"I don't mind," he said, astonished. "Chuffed, really, to be mistaken for my better-looking- _really_, Mum," he interrupted himself, sounding exasperated, as she opened her mouth to interject.

They sat silent for a while, listening to the thrum of sound from outside.

Mrs. Weasley finally exhaled, a small, strangled sound. "The last time I saw him, I pushed him aside for Percy-"

"Pffft," George blew, waving his hands dismissively although he had to look away to hide his expression, "I went off with Bill and made some insipid crack about our jobs being to keep 'em from becoming Headless Boys- even Fleur thought it was dreadful- but that doesn't matter. Really it doesn't."

She moved to object, too dejected to keep crying.

"Twenty years, Mum, we never doubted you loved us. Fred never really had a confidence problem," he said wryly, thoughts flashing vaguely to Ron. "Does the jumper have an F on it?" he continued, jumping topic.

Bewildered, she nodded meekly.

"I could always do with another," George said lightly. "Not," he added hurriedly, as her eyes misted and wobbled, "that I'm offering to be Fred and me both, because that's a sure ticket out past the left goalpost in a hurry… and besides there's only one Fred Weasley, even if there a- were two of us," he mused thoughtfully.

"Well, of course there was," Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, tone nearing scolding at the thought of even considering otherwise.

"Really, Mum, though- it is grand you can still see him in me- and Ginny, and Ron- and I suppose Percy," he admitted grudgingly. "And you too," he added under more consideration, unwilling to stop talking as he could not gauge the expression on his mother's face. "We got your eyes."

Gently she reached out to pat his cheek. He hoped she'd be willing to head back into dinner soon. George was growing progressively hungry and his knees and ankles were killing him.

"Don't tell your father," she said under her breath. "It's the sixth time I've made the jumper since- I've kept undoing it sinc- I can't stop, George b-because then-" she trailed off into a keen, and clutched at his hands tightly.

"Mum, I understand," he told her, because he did. "I wore Fred's most days for three solid months, and it was summer."

"Oh George!! I should have known that," she began, self-berating.

"I wore it inside out, 'course. Didn't want you all thinking I'd done the nutter." He had, then, but them knowing it was a different matter.

"I-if you do want it-"

"'Course."

"Good," Mrs. Weasley said briskly. "I'd hate to have it gathering mothballs and it's not sized quite right for anyone else. I will have to adjust the sleeves a touch for you-"

"You will?" he repeated in disbelief, his hand finally escaping from her grip with her finger prints leaving red spots on the already sensitively swollen flesh.

"Oh yes dear," she said absently, studying a stitch on the left arm. "All that bouncing of the Bludgers back and forth, your right arm's a ¾ inch around broader than the left."

Circumspectly, he took a gander at both shoulders. "We should probably head back out," he suggested, adjusting his crouch. "If the yams pulled through, they'll be gone by now."

His mother nodded. George, gladly, stood, and offered her a hand up.

When her boys were gallant like this, it reminded her so much of Fabian and Gideon, and Arthur when he was less distracted. She took it, smiling faintly, and before he'd solidly got his legs under him, yanked her son into a crushing embrace.

"George," she said in his good ear, clenching him fiercely. He had long been used to being taller than his mother, but for a moment he wished he was small again, clutching at the skirts of her robes. "_I'm so glad it wasn't both of you_." Mrs. Weasley could not have borne losing them both, in a dark and deeper echo of her brother's loss.

Perhaps for the first time, he was too. "I know, Mum," he said, kissing her cheek, and detaching gently, offered her his arm.

She took it.

Dinner turned out to be lovely in the ends, and Fleur had fixed up the yams just fine. Afterwards she pranced around with Victoire, glowing and letting each Weasley hold their first niece in turn. Bill followed anxiously. "Ron- don't drop her-"

"She's not a Quaffle," drawled Ginny, with her hands over her eyes in peek-a-boo. Ron scowled at her.

"Don't go pulling coins out of her ear, George, it's too close to her mouth!" said Bill, sounding for all the world, for one of the first times George could remember, like an actual prefect.

"She eez fine," said Fleur, whose figure had snapped back astoundingly quickly. "Veela children 'ave a maturity beyond their years, our Victoire knows better zen to put anyt'ing zilly in her mout'-"

"Oh?" Percy avidly asked his sister-in-law, interested and sincere. "What's she doing with her foot then?"

George chuckled quietly, and Charlie nudged him slightly. "C'mere a minute," he said in his older-brother tone that expected to be listened to- not that they ever had.

Skeptical, he followed him to the living room. "Bat in your belfry?" he asked Charlie a tad too loudly. He ignored the empty space where the family clock had been, because Mr. Weasley had stuck it up with the ghoul a solid year and a half ago now.

"George," said Charlie warmly, his hand a sudden and forceful presence on his younger brother's shoulder although he stood slightly below him in height. Charlie's hand was as usual forge-hot, enough to make Mrs. Weasley fuss over possible dragon-fever, but George remained convinced the sunshine had simply seeped into his brother's veins. His older brother was broader still, and the twin reckoned he probably couldn't take him in a fight. Probably not a duel, either, since Charlie's Conjunctivitis Curse was acute and tough enough to take out a dragon.

He wished Charlie didn't live in Romania.

His brother's gaze took him in affectionately. "You did good, tonight."

"Well," George corrected off-hand, staring lovingly at a hole in the old carpet where the Acid Pop Fred'd fed Ron had dripped. He shook himself in concern. "Godric," he mulled, beaming despite himself. "Too much time with Percy."

Charlie shifted his weight to his other leg, in the process somehow giving the same non-committal sense most folks used a shrug for through the change in balance. "I know I'm gone-"

"Not really," George observed shrewdly, but with a trace of a smile. "You can come back."

Charlie took it in stride. "I suppose Mum needs to see you're holding up-"

"Going somewhere with this, Charlie?" George said, vague grin fading.

"Do a bloke a favor," he said, frowning through his freckles. Charlie's hand was still on his shoulder. "Lay off the Cheering Charms," his brother muttered, soft and low.

He felt as if he'd been doused with a bucket of the ice water that shot from the shop bell doused. Ginny. The louse had _tattled_. He felt about twelve. "Okay," he allowed unsurely.

"I don't want to sic a dragon on you," Charlie Weasley threatened sternly, removing his grip.

He had a fire-breathing joke to answer this with, but the fight had gone out of him. George cracked his knuckles instead, giving a grimace-grin to his swollen digits and resolving to finish with the pus by this time tomorrow if it took him all night to rig up the trick Gobstone. "C'mon, Charlie," he said, trying to look serious. "Let's go throw gnomes."

His long-time second-favorite brother grinned broadly back, and clapped such a strong hand against his spine George had to fight the urge to wince. "Good man," said Victoire's godfather as they walked back. "Maybe we'll let Gin join."

George drew in deep as they walked through the house into the loamy air, the vanilla-ish smell of baked goods, battery oil that had leaked, and a touch of must blending its way out the open door.

Somehow, home was still home.


	4. IV

A/N: Fourth year. Probably May-ish. Shockingly long chapter (don't get used to it – I hope), and might I add, it hijacked me. It was planned- even initially written differently, and instead, you have this. Hope you like it. (I'm hoping it's sane- my wisdom teeth have just come out, this was my first point of being coherent enough to finish it, and I'm clutching the ice to my mouth as I write this- so it's not very.) My heartfelt thanks to all reviewers, and please, drop a line to tell me what you think- it'll make my very sore, achey tomorrow sooooo much better.

IV.

George thought it was supposed to hurt less.

Although he'd been practically promised by a ludicrous number of strangers and relations, he hadn't believed himself to be expecting much. Yet even in the days when he was suffocating on absences, George never believed four years on that life would be such a sorry wrung-out rag that needed a good Scourgify. He didn't think he'd still instinctively look for his brother every time he had a good laugh.

The thought that someday he wouldn't chilled him more than anything else.

If anything, it was worse, because it had been too long now since he had found Fred's inane grin at his elbow, or for that matter, elbowed him. He'd adjusted to wearily completing his own thoughts, with no one pondering what he was pondering. He couldn't find anyone to meet his wide and popping-with-horror eyes at home when Ron started in on the Cannons, since Ginny paid serious attention to any Quidditch conversation. He almost turned them on his mother, but figured she'd assume he was choking.

He'd adjusted, all right.

He loathed every second.

He was someone new now, and he certainly didn't like himself as much.

Frankly, George was more bored than he or Fred could have imagined. And (if possibly) more frightening, was the thought of where he'd be four more years on, farther away from Fred and his laugh.

George had thrown himself so fully into the Irremovable Gloves that he'd forgotten to eat all yesterday, eventually knowingly devouring Ton-Tongue Toffees in sheer desperation. Even the Puking Pastilles were beginning to look appetizing.

Watching his tongue expand and chortling as he put it to rights, he'd turned to Fred-

-despite all his adjustments, there was a second-

Well. He'd be doing this forever, wouldn't he? After all, that was how long it felt he would live for.

Ron was a passable business partner, but presently he'd have seized as a hound would bunnies any mere memory scrap, shred, echo or shadow of Fred to finish his sentences.

He was an echo himself.

When he realized he'd been self-pityingly staring at his hands, finally wrenched free of the clinging mittens with the proper peeler, for a good hour, George decided drinking alone was an exceptionally bad and boring idea and knew precisely where he could go at four in the morning.

He skipped out of the flat, down the street, and turned down alleyways where he and Fred had been forbidden to tread since they were yeh high and their eyes twinkled softly.

He really knew better than to hang about Knockturn nocturnally. It felt safe once, with Fred to watch his back, and exciting too, but now, he felt nothing.

The Fowl Roast was purportedly a restaurant, but its patrons were rarely interested in a meal produced by anyone other than Ogden, especially at this hour in the morning. The sign professed no occupancy in the rooms for rent upstairs and portrayed a roasting phoenix, legs poking up in the air. The picture bore an eerie resemblance to Dumbledore's old bird.

George Weasley was drawing an intently interested group of onlookers as he tucked his napkin into his collar and stretched out his legs to the empty seat across from him. The waitress looked part troll- perhaps a relation of Marcus Flint, who was drinking at the bar with Montague and burning another hole in George's head with his eyes. The patronage further consisted of goblins consorting with rag-draped hags (one of whom actually wasn't an eyesore beneath her shawl), a toothless warlock was chewing through his bottom lip as he contemplated George, and Willy Widdershins, who was practically wetting himself as he hurtled out the greasy kitchen door to avoid the son of Arthur Weasley, whose raids were the bane of Knockturn Alley as a rule.

He ordered a variety of elf-made wine which was a study in false advertising as it was unlikely to be wine and dubious in its elvishness. George caught a glimpse of what might have been a Cornish Pixie floating about, and swigged it anyhow.

He made it through the mashed potatoes all right, though he wasn't sure if he'd survive them, given a few hours for effect. It wasn't as if he was here for the quality menu of the establishment.

He was genuinely hoping to duel Montague, but it was the goblin, drunk on something George wanted to know the name of, who tipped his table and sent the fork flying into his face.

The low mumbling about the bar actually picked up, though from the sudden attention and darkening, blank faces, he guessed it was the equivalent to most bars falling silent. (He was used to that; happened in Muggle locations when they noticed the ear.)

The goblin's less-drunk compatriots stood up, twitching their long fingers.

George smiled broadly around the room in general, plucked the fork out and twiddled it before positioning it perfectly back on the plate. With a yawn in the goblins direction, he ducked into the bathroom, making sure he was un-followed first.

It was less skeezy then he anticipated; he discovered one unbroken mirror once he headed towards its fractured sink.

The hole looked especially grim in the yellow glow one couldn't rightly call light.

George dipped his head into his shoulder, raking his fingertips over his features in self-preparation. Through them he could see his miserable reflection, incidentally angled in such a way that the hole in his head was unnoticeable. He hoped fervently Flint and Montague hadn't ran for it. He studied the fresh cut on his cheek in the mirror and raised his wand to insure it wouldn't scar.

"Comb your hair," snipped Fred.

He jerked back in reflex, spastically backing away with pin-wheeling arms. His heel skidded on something squishy and he reeled back. His back hit the ground with a piercing pain.

After a moment of studying the ceiling, speckled multi-colored from godric-knew-what, George righted himself and limped upright. Face scrunched up, he reached a hand to the glass, tapping his one-eared image. "Fred?" he mouthed, watching the lips of his other self form the same name.

The enchanted mirror continued, "You look a sight, dearie. Why don't-"

He bit through his tongue as he swore his dismay.

When the glass shattered, he started with confusion and panic, palms lifted to protect his face.

Only a moment later did he feel the pain, and begin to pry the shards from his soft flesh.

Blowing on the wound as if it would make it better, he cracked his neck and prayed for a duel.

Without his second, but then, that was the problem.

Twiddling his wand, he marched out.

Half the bar leaped on him.

"Brilliant," he marveled aloud, before punching the waitress in the nose and kicking a goblin on his way to Disarm Flint. All it was missing was Draco Malfoy… and some other important bits, but there was nothing to be done about that.

"_Tarantellegra_," he bellowed, swinging his wand around and plopping a Shield Hat from the deep pockets of his dragon hide jacket. He dodged a nasty curse he didn't recognize that whizzed by in a wave of puce, then snapped his wand around to deflect another.

The four goblins were obviously going to be a problem, but they were of the grungy variety, not Gringotts, and like the six-ish wizards jumping him, a good two-thirds of them had the glazed, hyper-confident look of Felix addicts.

Grinning cheerfully, he pulled Luminous Balloons out and starting hexing them to explode while still managing to shoot off a Jelly Legs at anyone who came close.

Montague, snarling, leapt for him with a Suffocation jinx; with something of a choke, he pulled off _Relashio_ non-verbally.

One of those O.W.L.s had been in DADA, after all.

He hit a goblin with a tongue-splitting curse and was about to pull out the Portable Swamp when the not-bad-looking hag dropped a glass she had Levitated above him onto his head from where she sat across the room.

Although still fully aware, he dropped like Wronski in a feint, accidentally knocking Flint down with him.

He came to at the bar, opening his eyes to stare at Fred.

He lifted his head from the dented dingy countertop with its distinctive ancient smell of whiskey-drenched wood. "You're dead," said George, confused, and a nearby hag moved another seat away. Behind his eyes he ached with blood flow.

The wavery figure behind the shot glasses and broken nettle wine bottles gaped back, and George re-oriented.

Fred had possessed both ears and he expected that was unlikely to change. There were people standing behind him in the mirror as well, as obscure as a shape would be in a Foe-Glass.

Not caring, he flopped back down, slightly too hard, only to hear a firm, "No you don't," from, as far as he could gather, directly behind him.

A hand yanked on the back of his collar, pulling him upright. "Katie?" Angelina Johnson prompted.

Water sprouted from nowhere and shot into his eyes and mouth. Defensively, he held up his hands, protesting.

"That seems a little harsh," said Alicia Spinnet's voice worriedly.

"Somebody needs to slap some sense into him," Katie Bell chimed in, from somewhere behind or maybe above him. "I volunteer Angelina."

"What?" said George, uncertain where to look. He was surrounded. The girls were leaning into his vision, concernedly, from all sides, and while it was not a bad sight, they looked somewhat ominous at the moment.

"No, George," Angelina assured him, swiveling his stool so he faced them. "I'm not going to hit you-"

"Fine, I will-"

"_Katie_!"

"Scuse me-" George tried, swaying. Between the knock on his head and the alcohol, they were pretty swirls, but either they were all wearing Quidditch robes, complete with protective wrist gauntlets, or he had conjured them from his extremely vital imagination in the form he knew them best.

"Pity Lee's got the Sober-Up Potion-"

"Pity, nothing- Angelina, some of the ingredients in that are _really_ illegal-"

"Since when have Fr- " She cleared her throat. "When's George ever cared about that?"

"Alicia, don't let her give me anything that'll kill me," George begged, turning his head towards the girl in question.

"I'm _Katie_," the blur holding him up on his left laughed, with a undertone that suggested he'd see her eyes rolling if he could see straight. "You can't be that drunk, George. All these years we kept you two right- and had a job of it, I'll t-"

Alicia, the real one this time, hushed her swiftly but not before George felt the rushing giddiness of being referred to as one of two again.

"Y'sure about that?" he slurred, because he missed the days when he could swap with Fred more than anything, and tried to wink but ending up blinking at Angelina instead.

"I hope," the lovely black girl said dryly, "you're not gone enough to confuse Katie and me."

He grinned blearily up at her. "Not bloody likely. Hullo." He gazed about the bar, with the hulking waitress lugging a few heaps upright, and one table still afire. There were charred marks all around the area of the men's bathroom. "You lot save me?" His only other idea involved Dung Fletcher leaping out from the woodwork in very uncharacteristic style, but that made more sense than the Gryffindor Chasers in this dump.

"Looks like they needed the saving," Katie Bell observed, sounding impressed.

Alicia folded her arms, hair waving as she half-shook her head. "Don't encourage him- George Weasley, you're going to get yourself killed."

"'M not!" he protested, shocked, as he supported his head with his hands.

"We didn't save you," Angelina informed him quietly.

"You owe your friend Verily-"

"Verity," Alicia corrected immediately.

"A job," Katie finished, somewhat sourly.

His mind flashed on the nice-looking hag and he wondered what on earth she was doing here, and in disguise. He'd seen her working at Flourish & Blotts over a large part of the past three years. They didn't really speak, though he'd thought about it many the time. He wasn't sure what type of name-basis they were on.

His girls knew Verity??

That couldn't be good.

"We've had someone on you lately," Katie said pleasantly, sitting down next to him and stretching out her legs. "It's mostly Ron, Ginny and Harry, but us occasionally. Wood. Your brother Percy."

"You're scaring us," Alicia elaborated, eyes wide and with a deep breath.

"Not that you didn't always," Angelina muttered, and Bell let out a soft huff of air just shy of a laugh.

This was embarrassing. Verity too? "She can have her job again?" he tried, weakly, and very confusedly.

"Doubt she'll take it," Johnson murmured, face stern. "If you grovel, possibly. Lee brought her in, talk to him."

Lee was worse than Fred with pretty girls. "Why all of you? Here? Beyond-"

"Your usual idiocy?" Katie suggested.

He shot a half-glare at her; she recoiled, frowning, but shaking her head, looked over to Alicia with a bit of a grin. He knew those looks. They were the sort that used to precede fits of giggles, whether over Roger Davies' hair or Viktor Krum's victory record or him and Fred messing about.

"It's our anniversary," said Angelina, smiling.

For a moment he thought she meant her and Fred, but then there was nothing to commemorate. He looked between them for further answered but found only visible silent laughs in the half-parted lips and visible front teeth. Forlornly, he shifted his gaze from one to the other, awaiting explanation.

"Come along," Angelina encouraged.

He stood up. Very quickly, he sat back down.

Wordlessly, Alicia and Angelina yanked up on each arm. He jerked forward, and with the professionalism of players in a sport where one quickly grew accustomed to dragging teammates off the field, he found each arm over a set of shoulders. Katie, meanwhile, moved to shove the nearest passed out person aside and paused. "Do we know this one?" she asked.

George squinted, staggering to stabilize so the girls didn't bear all his weight. "Montague," he explained, elaborating as the sparks had left a good rash on their old foe's face.

Angelina rolled her eyes.

"Could never keep them straight," Bell remarked, which he presumed was part of why she never made captain.

"Bit hard when they all looked like baby trolls on Skele-Grow," he replied instantly and she laughed, while a movement from Alicia's shoulders betrayed her amusement. Angelina tried to be impassive, but he knew her too well.

"He was slightly better looking than Flint," Alicia remarked, unconcerned.

"Not anymore," Katie giggled, toeing the unconscious form a touch harsher than necessary to edge them out of the shuffling trio's way.

"Verity's the one who knocked me out," George remembered suddenly, nearly knocking the girls supporting him over as he jerked his head upright. "What'd she-"

"You did fire her," pointed out Alicia.

Ah, true. "So where we off to?" he said brightly, and they all resumed their innocent, close-mouthed looks as they made their way out the saloon-style doors.

Alicia Side-Along Apparitioned him.

He remembered when his friends had trusted him, and there was no second thought to popping himself anywhere, since his mind was always his own.

"Harry's not coming," were the first words out of Oliver Wood's mouth, in the frenetic way they knew and loved. "Basilisk eggs- who cares about- I mean, if they're even real, what are the odds they'll hatch now?" he demanded, thoroughly exasperated. "Weasley, you look like shit, how are you?"

George wondered if this was all some big practical joke. If so, he was adequately impressed. "Hi Oliver," he managed.

It was sometime in the early hours of the morning, probably four a.m. unless he'd been out longer than he'd thought, with a touch of rising orange at the mouth of the horizon in the east. Shards of dew clung to the grass blades, and the Quidditch pitch rose before them in a dip. The hoops glinted in the moonlight. He was flanked by four of the seven man team of Wood's Hogwarts years. Lee grinned at him, waving a microphone at him.

George wondered how he'd missed traveling by Time Turner and looked about for McGonagall. He poked Katie Bell in the shoulder to make sure she was real. She apparently was, unless he was inventing the slight give of the skin and the annoyed intonation in her "Ow." "You're kidding," he worked out of his mouth at last.

"I broke into your flat and brought your broomstick," Lee offered giddily, mouth stretching so broad in his grin it hurt to watch. He was justifiably pleased with himself. It wasn't an easy task.

"It is the eighth-" Wood stopped, pained. "I wanted to do the seventh," he said sadly. "But Harry had some vampire problem at work, your brother was mixed up in it, George. I wanted us all here- and really. What inspires a bloke to go sticking chicken eggs under toads, anyhow? Where'd you even get the chicken egg?" He looked earnestly puzzled, probably because baby basilisks had little use in Quidditch. "Don't answer that," he added to Lee, who was poised, microphone at lips, before steamrolling on. "Now we won't even have si-" he started mournfully

"Did you see if Ginny could fill in?" Angelina cut in.

His eyes lit up. "Johnson, I could k-"

"Don't," his successor advised, shaking her head. "I've got it." She Disapparated with a quick, business-like crack!

George's expression was extremely wary. "Where-"

"Are you?" Oliver guessed. George winced. "Portree!"

"Ah, right," said Lee. "You play for them."

The captain's expression went dark. "Puddlemere," he shot furiously. "Seven years- Mungo's sake, I've been made captain of the United- why does everyone from school have the misconception-"

"We knew it started with a P," George interjected, grinning.

Oliver's expression froze, and he sighed. Whatever he would have said was lost forever as Angelina popped! back in their midst with casual ease, calmly brushing at her robes. Her landing was perfect; those standing around her staggered back into each other. George caught Lee, only to go down off-balance a second later with the other boy on top of him. "She'll come," she announced, flicking her hair back into place. Angelina then took note of George and Lee, the latter of whom waved sheepishly up at her.

"For a moment I thought you'd be Roger Davies," said George through Lee Jordan's shoulder, "arriving with the Ravenclaws to play us for the game we never got to your second-last year, Wood."

"No, not Davies," Wood replied dismissively. "But Corner and his lot should be here-" He checked his watch. "Fifteen minutes, give or take, once we've warned up properly.

Katie's mouth dropped; Alicia reached to tug on his arm to persuade him otherwise; and Lee sat up, looking delighted at the possibility of a larger audience.

"He's joking," Angelina explained with a heave. "Aren't you, Oliver?" she turned anxiously to assure herself.

Their Captain- still him, really, although the title'd been past- looked disheartened. "I thought it was obvious!"

"Don't do that," George advised him, shoving Lee off him. "It's scary."

"I thought it was quite a good effort, Oliver," Lee chirped, directly into the megaphone. They collectively winced, hands clapping to their ears. George didn't bother clapping both hands to his one, though he knew perfectly well he could play it for laughs.

"Had me," Katie said, slightly breathless. "I was expecting blue robes any-"

Ginny cracked! in, decked in full Harpie gear. "Your jaw's swelling," she informed George, bending to peck him on the cheek. He recoiled in pain as he realized she was right.

"All set then?" said Oliver briskly, rubbing his hands as Angelina reached for the latch of the trunk behind him.

"'Scuse me," George demanded, as Angelina tossed him his club. He ignored it; it smacked Katie's face instead. She snatched it off the ground and tapped him hard on the shoulder with it. He ignored it. Alicia took it from her with a scowl.

"Problem?" asked Angelina coolly, because no one else would.

He lowered his hand. "We're a Beater short," said George curtly, refuse to look around at his fellows' expressions. "Unless River here's suddenly developed the ability to stay up in the air for longer spurts or found a way to get Fred to possess him-"

"'Cor, that'd be cool!" Lee exclaimed enthusiastically.

Angelina glared. He withered. The microphone drooped.

Wood shifted anxiously. "I've only got one Bludger."

"Purposely?" George asked, eyes flashing.

"What? No! It's not l- It's the set from the game Harry nearly died-"

"Which time?" Jordan interrupted curiously.

"The time resulting in one less Bludger," Oliver responded automatically, looking at him as if he were mad. "Look- we don't have to- I thought'd it be, y'know, a good time."

"It will be," Angelina Johnson informed them all, collecting the club from Katie and brandishing it at George like an ultimatum. Her dark glare boded ill for anyone who availed not to enjoy themselves.

"Actually I think Oliver was hoping to recruit Harry for Puddlemere," Ginny told George low near his ear. She kept her gaze idly on the pitch and her mouth barely moved. "He's not having it. Still, this ought to be a real go- I always wanted to play for Oliver, he's smashing."

He kept his eyes on Alicia Spinnet, who was elbowing Katie somewhat nervously, as he muttered back through the edge of his mouth. "Harry's a decent mate and I owe him money. Cause for him to worry?"

She threw back her head in a derisive laugh, which left the rest of the group staring at her with some confusion.

"It's a practice," Wood explained, taking the club from Johnson and tossing it to George.

It was one of Fred's old ones. The scuffled grip fit his hand as well as any could. He swung it around a bit, testing it out, nearly taking off Katie's head.

It felt good.

"Why are you here, anyway?" Oliver proceeded to ask Lee, who held up his hands innocently.

George overheard the girls discussing whether he should be flying or not, and before any of them decided to force-feed him the Sober-Up Potion, he swept up his Cleansweep Five. A sliver of the chain still hung on it. Grinning, he strode over to the unlatched trunk and kicked open the lid, hand reaching for the Bludger's straining braces.

"That's not until we get to the Backbeat drill!" yelped Oliver, dropping his broomstick and shoving past Lee and Angelina as the Bludger leapt free. He dove on it, getting a two-handed grip, and was promptly dragged through the grass behind it as it darted forward. Grunting, he attempted to pull it to chest level, but Katie, cheekily, had plucked out the Quaffle and punted it to Angelina.

In seconds she was up on her broomstick, seizing it under her armpit as she sped off towards the center hoop amidst the eastern sky.

Wood let go of the Bludger and bolted back towards his broomstick as if he had a horde of angry Wasps fans on his heels.

George, whooping, caught up with the Bludger and belted it to punch the Quaffle right out from underneath Angelina's arm. She turned, her one thick braid whipping in the wind, and caught his eye with a slim smile that made him deeply regret she'd never be competing with Fleur and whoever Perce or Charlie married for the affections of the sort generally reserved for Ginny. Then Alicia zipped beneath to catch it as it fell like molasses ground-ward, and passed it ahead to Katie. Though the two of them were rustier than the third Chaser, Katie caught it without even looking.

His sister was lightly blowing dust off the Snitch, watching its silver wings slip free with utter joy as it sputtered to life. Then, free, it danced a darting path around Wood's gaze, which never deterred from the hoops he was speeding towards, and fluttered off to lurk somewhere. Shaking her head slightly, she let the broom zip up to her hand and Ginny joined the others in the sky.

"And they're off!" Lee Jordan spouted into the microphone, and realizing no one was listening, continued bellowing anyways and followed after them on foot, trailed by a cord that went to nowhere.

"And it's Spinnet to Johnson, Johnson to Bell, attempt on goal- nice, Oliver- to Johnson, to Weasley- the Seeker- that's not called for, George- who has chucked it at her brother's head after that close call with the Bludger, better duck, George- ooh, too slow- Spinnet recovers, tries on goal- Wood, is it even fair when you're playing for Eng- whoa, Ginny Weasley, surprise attack on goal, c'mon, yessss! And WEASLEY is our- queen, folks-"

Oliver made a confused face at Lee, as Katie swept from behind the pitch- "Bell, clearly out of bounds there, but – well, back to Johnson- double goal on the Keeper there- hi, Angelina!- and Alicia Spinnet's making for the other goalposts, better go after her there, Wood!"

"That's- we're playing half-pitch!" Oliver was yelling, but he was jolting forward on the broomstick anyways in a sorry attempt to cross the field before his former Chasers- and Ginny Weasley, who'd lost all regard for the Snitch zipping unnoticed through Lee Jordan's dreadlocks.

George was pursuing an oddly happy one-man war against, and sometimes with, the Bludger, saving Katie from a contusion here, Ginny from a blow to the hip and himself from a broken nose. He helped Oliver out from time to time, sending it in a narrowly-dodgeable path towards the Chaser likely to score. He became distracted only when Angelina tossed him the Quaffle, which he caught left-handed in sheer shock. He was suddenly aware of the bulk of Oliver Wood streaming towards him in a professional forward tackle and without a thought in his head, drew back the club to punch the Quaffle up into the lightening sky.

The Bludger, meanwhile, slammed down to the sand of the pitch, tossing the grains up like a salad, while Lee Jordan desperately recounted his own life-saving antics.

Shaking his head, George sped down to knock it away from him.

They battered around for a while that went like a sunny day, even trying, to their detriment, to knock the Bludger around with spells.

"Oliver, Relashio makes it angry!" shouted Angelina, pulling off an impressive Starfish-with-Stick that very nearly became a Starfish-Without-Stick as it grazed the top of her dark hair.

"It doesn't- urgh," Wood wholloped it with the Beater club, before sending it spinning over to Katie, who caught it neatly to whack the Bludger to George's poised arms, "have a personality!"

"Bludger have- argh-" George toppled off the broomstick, Ginny narrowly caught it and dove to catch him by the collar. "Feelings too," he said weakly, as he remounted, half-choked, mid-air. Waving her off, he coughed dramatically as his sister dramatically swatted it away from the Bludger. He caught sight of the Golden Snitch amidst her mane of flaming hair, but decided not to draw attention to it. He didn't want this ending yet. "Weaforbl," he tried weakly.

"Are you going to be sick?" Ginny wondered, belting the Bludger against the hoop. It let off a strangely beautiful clang of metal against metal, before- almost woozily, George thought- hurtling off after Lee again.

"Weasleys for Bludger Lives?" he managed, adoring how lame it was.

"Fred would strangle you for that one," she said idly, looking for the Quaffle and not the Snitch.

"I know," he said lovingly, and quickly turned his attention back to the ball trying to kill them all.

They were playing in a warm pink glow, and truly playing at that. Katie was covered with a strange rubbery substance from blowing up the initial Quaffle; George impressed them all by managing to conjure a duplicate. Katie hadn't bothered to clean up, too intent on scoring before George decided to explode the next one too and turn the whole thing into something unfashionable like Quodpot.

Ginny even offered to take a break and let Lee up, but her broomstick rolled over sadly when he tried, and he insisted he was better off with feet firmly planted anyhow. He was covered in sand, the rest of them were covered with sweat, too worn to tease or smile. Even the old Bludger was lagging.

"I got it!" yelped Alicia suddenly, demonstrating the Snitch up her sleeve. Wood, sincerely impressed, instantly began commending her on an excellently demonstrated Plumpton Pass and mentioning how he'd had her in mind for potential Seeker, if Harry hadn't turned up. She agreed whole-heartedly they'd done it on purpose and Lee, in his by now fervid excitement combined with lack of sleep, began yelling her praise with obscenities McGonagall would have fed him to Filch for.

The girls circled in a pinwheel around her, spinning groundward. Halfway down Alicia beckoned Oliver, who sheepishly darted over, and Ginny and Angelina forcibly grabbed the lurking George and broomstick into the pile.

They were positioned to land on top of the still-shouting Lee, giggling as George blew raspberries across the circle of faces and Katie and Alicia simultaneously messed up Wood's hair, when a whistle rang out from the far post. George, falling over half-onto his sister's broomstick, plummeted the both of them and his sister with them.

The group that had survived the Battle of Hogwarts staggered up from the tangle, wands raised, Katie trapped underneath Ginny and only George's waving hand poking up bravely from beneath Angelina. Wood, in a fight stance, spotted them first. "Gobshite."

The Pride of Portree Quidditch team were lined up alongside the field, their deep purple robes striking against the morning sky. Meaghan McCormack, the Captain, leaned out her broomstick and stuck her fingers in a mouth to give them a second wolf-whistle. Oliver Wood blushed purple.

"I think I'm late for practice," said Angelina easily, looking down at her still-fitting but worn Gryffindor robes with only faint concern. They'd thought they'd be long gone by this hour, starting in the wee hours as they had, but apparently she'd miscalculated.

"Language, Oliver," chided George, a touch late.

"Can we stay and watch?" Wood asked eagerly, receiving a patented look from Angelina in turn.

"You don't get to spy," she told him. "Go on, get. Ginny-"

"We're playing you Sunday next, if I don't see you before then," said his sister. She waved at the Pride of Portree. Her opposite number waved less enthusiastically back.

"You're not in trouble, are you?" asked Alicia with some concern, following the others' glances over to them

"'Course not," Johnson said bracingly. "Long as I don't fall asleep on my Nimbus, I'm brilliant. See you lot later." Her gaze flicked over to the sole Weasley twin. "George- don't make us collect your arse-"

"Cute arse though it is," chimed in Lee, leading Oliver to sigh because he'd said it into the microphone and the Pride was now staring more intently, one of them calling loudly, "Is that Oliver Wood??"

"Right, then," said Angelina decisively, glancing between the groups. "I'm off." She took an almost-sideways step away.

"Dinner?" Lee called to her jokingly. "Winged polo?"

"Yes, Lee," Angelina shot back. "When _you_ fly."

He staggered back, wounded. "I'll take you," he told George, who'd braced him by fortune of location. "You're the one with the cute arse."

"That's me," said George affectionately, dropping Lee on his own as he sidled left. "Kisses, Ang."

She stared him down, with a touch less affection, and moved closer, to mutter, almost. "You're no stranger, George Weasley. I know you're lonely-"

"'M never a-"

"-Lone?" she finished, with a slight smile that shut down the '_don't do that_' rising like bile in his throat. "That's the idea… We'll do drinks," she determined loudly, backing away. Her gaze slid across the group to their former captain. "Wood, get them all tickets to your Bats game-"

He gaped. "You could get them tickets- or Wea-"

"Wood," she said warningly. "This Friday. You're the captain." Whether she meant of Puddlemere or of them, no one could tell or care.

"Behind the hoop, Oliver?" Alicia inquired cozily, and Katie whooped quietly. Although she probably had tickets herself through the Department of Magical Games and Sports, they were likely to give her another nosebleed, without the need for a nougat.

They wanted to protect him, the way they hadn't been able to save Fred. It was sweet, almost.

"Good luuuuck," called Lee warningly as Angelina waved them off the field, her chocolate eyes not lingering on anyone in particular. She didn't look at George as he might have been somebody else, who might someday have been something else to her. He suspected she didn't allow herself that.

"See you," she told them all breezily, the same tone she'd called after Fred in when the twins had ran off after laughingly greeting her, Wood and the whole old Quidditch team.

Shoulders straight and chin up, she strode off.

Lee mock-sighed as they turned to go. George lightly turned the by-now splintering wood of his brother's club in his hand, ignoring curious words from his friends and for a brief summer morning moment, letting his thoughts stray to the most dangerous land of all. The might-haves that filled the empty bed in his room, the potential in unfinished sentences.

Lonely, he considered, the word for witches with loads of cats and boys who'd lost their broomsticks and sweethearts.

He figured it as good a word as any for a hole.

What did she want him to do, though? Ask out Vicky Frobisher? Hire a free elf? Name the Bludger Fred?

With a pasted smile, he turned under the pink sky, slinging the bat over his shoulder, and debating the ways to get Oliver's goat before Alicia started in on the nasty turn of a few of his products lately.

If he had to be lonely, maybe they had it right, this not-being-alone. He followed the remnants of his team, glancing once for a quick glimpse of the girl who'd danced with his brother at the ball and catching instead the woman's slim silhouette against the sun before she was flocked by the teammates.

He shook his head only a little before turning to ask Lee if he knew the one about the ghoul, Jarvey, and Quidditch player who walked into the Leaky Cauldron.

Well, he thought, trailing along. Well.

She would have made one hell of a sister-in-law, that Angelina Johnson.


	5. V

a/n: Five years.

Unquestionably, having at least started all of them, this is the weirdest chapter. It's probably the only one that _is_ weird, on that note. However, I'd started a lot of this the same night I started the story, wrote the 1st, most of the 3rd, and almost all the 19th- and this- and. Well. It's part of the story for me, I think- maybe not as good all-around as some of the others, but like all the rest, 1/19th of a whole. Please do tell me what you think. I do like it, but then I wrote it. (on that note- thanks so much to my anonymous reviewers who I couldn't respond personally too, ivy and jo. Reviews mean so much, particularly in the past week (the pain is finally gone) wherein I literally had nothing to do but write when I could bear to, watch TV, and endlessly check my inbox. Thanks again.)

V.

Once he heard about it, he was inspired.

For some reason, no one ever seemed to think that was a good thing.

Ron's tongue had loosened merrily over an evening brainstorming over mulled mead. These days he was all fairy lights and tales, the fleeting things spoken of before happy endings like weddings. No one'd proposed yet, but it was in the air, in the radiance of Ginny's cheeks and the moonlight broomstick races she and Harry took as far as Edinburgh in the spare time of her busy schedule. It made George slightly queasy, his baby sister in love, but he could handle it being Harry. The Ron and Granger thing was getting positively nauseous; he hoped they'd just get on with and start making babies already and leave off with the shouting and too-public apologies already. Never-ending coupling bliss aside, Weasley gatherings were- almost entirely- as merry as they'd ever been.

"It's not about simple inventions, Ron," said George, gesticulating with his glass. The thick golden liquid rolled inside. "And I'm relatively convinced Omnioculars have the Quidditch play-by-play covered- and if I need ideas on _that _end of things, we'll fire-call Wood." Ron looked slightly insulted; he had a slight complex about Wood, apparently leftover from having replaced him on the team. "Think bigger. Think laughs. Think _like Fred_."

"I reckon you do that better than me!"

"Haven't we established my own head's busy enough- fine, I'll be Fred, you be George!" he decided, waving his arm slightly too fiercely. The liquid lapped at the glasses' rim, a droplet clinging to the end. "Hullo, Fred," he said, displaying his canines in a forced smile. "What're we blowing up today, then?"

Ron sat back and upright, eyes popping. "Oh, now, that's too ruddy weird!!"

He leaned back, shaking his head. "See, 'm not buying that performance at all, Ron. Would I say that? Come on now," he chided. "When's anything been too weird for me?" He tilted his head, thinking about this point. "Okay," he conceded, "maybe Luna Lovegood, but she's-"

His brother groaned.

"Harry should have kept the bloody Stone," Ron muttered idly. "Then we could've had Fred pop up and drum up a few new ideas… tell you, we'll run out of business if one of us doesn't come up with something soon…"

"We will not," protested George indignantly, stomach rolling darkly. "Weasley's Wizard Wheezes has emerged with classic products-"

"And half the reason we ran Gambol & Japes and Zonko's-"

"I feel wretched about Zonko's-" his older brother muttered, staring down at his mead.

"-out is that we've got new stuff, George, and they couldn't keep up. You're sure," he said slightly anxiously, "you've run through all the things you and Fred suggested?"

"We've been through our plausible notions, our implausible notions, and we've given a go to a few of our impossible notions," he sighed. "And then we did yours. _Weasley's Wiz_-" he started with great scorn, though the chess set had done extraordinarily well at Christmas.

"Face it," Ron said smugly. "The Harry Potter set was a sell-out-"

"He's never going to forgive you for that," George said in an undertone with the glass at his mouth.

Ron, triumphantly, took a sip and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "Oh ho," he countered. "Like you'll be living down the Edible Scars- grape flavored!" he chirped, like the sign above a barrel.

Harry had to understand how perfectly they matched the edible Dark Marks. It was just business. "We need new notions," he sighed. "Eventually Harry'll sic the Aurors on us and the Potter frenzy's dying down- shame, the Stick-On Scars were a killing-"

Ron nodded. "I think we should reconsider my Quidditch Caption-"

"No."

"Your loss," his brother replied grumpily. "Reckon I should look into getting my Auror's license, this keeps up."

George gave him a very disgruntled look and hit him.

They sat, in mutual pranker's block, and then George, very lightly, asked, "Er, Ron, what Stone?"

"The Hallows one," he muttered unthinkingly. "Y'know, the Resurrection Stone."

"Right." Beat. "Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"Harry get rid of it?"

"Obviously," he tutted, sounding slightly too much like his girlfriend. "Dropped it in the bleeding Forest- big Forest, too. I mean, he can keep the Cloak, but the Elder Wand, no, that he won't keep around- why?"

"Nothing can bring back the dead," George recited in a questioning tone.

Ron shrugged, not at all watchful, and thoughtful himself. "Don't know if they were so much as back as talking, really- it's like the kid's story-"

"What kid's story?" he demanded impatiently. "I don't remember dead people in Babbity Rabbitty-" That was the only one he and Fred had ever sat through, they'd been far keener on the comics of Vortigern Nigg, Dragon Slayer, who Charlie thought was mean.

He let Ron start talking, which took a while, because he was eager to relay the contents of nonsense Muggles optimistically called fairy tales, by some ominous Brothers called Grimm. And George proceeded to do something he'd never been very good at and wasn't much better at with only one ear- he listened. "-and then there's this Snow White-"

"Snow White?" he interrupted, because that one was asking for it. "Bit redundant, isn't that?"

Ron, fervently, threw up his hands in relief that finally, someone understood his pain. "'S what I said, y' should've _heard_ her-" Hermione was almost always the 'she' or 'her' he meant these days. She grew most displeased when he didn't use her name, but Ron hadn't heeded her on that one- yet.

Eventually George got the full gist of it, which he doubted Harry would've liked at all, especially the part where Potter's parents, Sirius Black, and even Remus Lupin- all decidedly dead- appeared before him. George's stomach jerked up and down unpleasantly.

He was finding it increasingly difficult to continue to conversation, which Ron was decidedly on the oblivious end of, especially when he turned the topic to _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches_ and its inability to help him out of some incomprehensible jam with Hermione, for the first time since he'd been gifted with it. He was rather stunned.

"Move onto number thirteen, then," said George shortly.

Ron gaped, thunderstruck. "My world's shaken," he muttered.

"Come on then, there's loads more," he continued, exasperated, then, at his brother's eager features, reconsidered with some kindness. "Just not fail-safe- not sure how they'd fare on Granger... For her, I know the perfect words to get you out of anything-"

"Does it involve the word 'love'?" Ron queried dubiously, looking for a refill for his mulled mead. "Dunno, I've done pretty well with finding my inner S.P.E.W. -"

"Try 'Hermione'," George offered faintly. "'Could I borrow a book?'"

He stopped mid-pour. "That's not half-bad," he reckoned. "She's been eager enough to shove them down my throat and excited when I actually read them- wanted to talk about nuances," he twisted his mouth oddly around the word, "plot-points… Makes her happy," he commented incredulously, "I could give that one a whirl- sort of a frightening thought, though," he muttered, a queer look on his face, visions of the width _Hogwarts, A History_ dashing behind his eyes.

It took too long for Ron to leave. George spent most of the time concentrating on his leg, which was jiggling impatiently, willing it to stop moving. It didn't listen. Nonverbally, he Stunned it, keeping his wand in his pocket which mostly hid the red light, when it became impossible for even his brother to avoid it any longer.

When Ron finally left, George stood up so fast he forgot to unStun his leg first and knocked himself over. Undignified, at his age, but he dismissed the thought and hurtled down the stairs, into the backroom workshop, and emptied the cupboards.

What a tosser, that Cadmus Peverell, thought George, as he went about the business. To create the Stone over some broad. You could fall in love again, but there was no replacing a twin.

Perhaps he'd only had three O.W.L.s, but he'd have had four if he hadn't decided it funny to transfigure the Ministry wizard's toupee into the raccoon instead of the raccoon into a purple mat.

He knew his magic, George Weasley.

If it could be done, he'd do it. And do it better. Will, way- _he could beat Death_…

Hang on. This felt a touch familiar. What was the description, again, of the second brother from the tale? Ron hadn't mention, and it had been a bedtime story long, long ago that he'd paid very little attention to. Ambitious, he thought idly. Well, he was no Percy, but he supposed this undertaking he was contemplating- no, doing, definitely doing- was ambitious in a wonderful sort of way…

It hardly mattered. As long as he had the nerve for it, and George had barrels to spare, he felt confident he could pull this or anything else off.

He paused in rummaging through their potions store, stocked largely with supplies available only on Knockturn, and started plotting out his course. He'd have to go to the Department of Mysteries first probably; he was sure he could get an entrance as a war hero, on the ear alone. Then research the middle Peverell and what he'd done, see if he could subtly trick Granger there- smart witch, but he could manage it. Some Dark hags on Knockturn spoke of séances and other voodoos his father'd had him swear not to fiddle with for anything, but Fred, he wasn't _anything_. His father'd understand undoubtedly. A Weasley twin, today, could manage as well as any ancient wizard longing for his lost true love…

He reckoned something like this'd take years, to do right, but what were a few years of his life, weighed against a life? He'd gladly fight Death- beat Death- for…

_Wait_, said the annoying voice in his mind that sounded like his mother that Fred seemed to have failed to inherit.

_Arrogance._

That was the word. He dimmed for an instant, then resumed with more speed.

No, he wasn't going to really try and _bring back_ the dead, too much could go wrong, he decided, it'd only be a conversation, to get his sluggish mind back in gear and bounce ideas off his brother once more. The thought made George feel like doing a jig, and he bounced slightly, heel-toe, as he hustled out into the shop and prepared to knock a bunch of stock off the table to clear the way. He paused, noticing they were Whiz-bang boxes, and carefully stacked them off to the side over the span of a few minutes. Harry got to talk to his parents, to Sirius, why couldn't he?

Surely Fred, even if only for a look, a word, to share one laugh, was worth anything? He'd pay any cost, in time, flesh-

Not in other people, though. Not quite any.

He thought about his mother's worried face and slammed his fist on the table in indecision, sending the freely scattered potion bottles up and spinning.

Swiftly, George reached for his wand, but they were already shattering and small explosions turned his vision to white-light and shot crystalline containers still higher. A spinning gold bottle, _the knock-off Felix Felicis_ he realized with horror, was heading towards his head. He moved to bat it away but a blue bottle broken against the table poured on to a Basic Blaze box and suddenly fireworks were exploding. Catherine-wheels blasted out before his eyes in a frenzy and blew him back like a human Bludger.

His back hit the shelf behind him hard.

"O""O""O""O""O""O""O"

He sat up in a moment, pain and damages far from his mind.

He didn't know what he'd been thinking, but his way was beautifully clear now.

Wasting time when a perfectly good Resurrection Stone, the only one, he reckoned, existed barely out of his grasp. He could have Fred back in a snap of his fingers, or a quick Crack! of Apparition…

The Stone wasn't hard to find. Not in his Forest. Their Forest. Though they never really made it too deep before Hagrid pulled them back by their ears… he grinned darkly as he strode deeper, he'd like to see the friendly half-giant try that now…

The colors of the Forest path were dimmed by the pale gold hue cast about by the vesper hour, like that of the beautiful little bottle. Part of him thought it appropriate to wait until the sun went down, but George felt suddenly sure and impatient. A little voice in his head that sounded familiar was wondering quietly how he'd gotten onto Hogwarts grounds and how long he'd been out, since it was hours and hours on from the silent night that had exploded, but he swatted absently with his thoughts and it vanished into his certainty. Now was his moment, this in-between of bright dusk. He might have been there for hours, but the color was the same. It all came in a daze.

He remembered the way as if he'd walked it with Harry, the walk he'd seen Hagrid take back. It was him and the Forest. Centaurs, spiders, goons, beware the Weasley and tremble.

A touch of luck, treading in Harry's long-gone footsteps and he was on still-stomped ground in dim shade, waving his wand with the so familiar _Accio!_

-And suddenly there was a perfectly round hole in the ground and the stone shooting up. He caught it as Harry would. It was cracked and cool against the now fiery fingers he swirled it over. He felt its marble-smoothness against the roughness of the splitting crack, and he cupped it greedily in his palm like a Gobstone he was about to play. It rolled once, twice, thrice- and then-

Then he was there.

"Fred?" George asked hoarsely.

"Sorry," said the figure, not sounding very apologetic. "Fabian."

He reared, because that was wrong. The crystal plan was splintering before him and the Stone fell unheeded from his fingers.

"Oh, now hang on," said another shining figure. He seemed more substantial in a moment, but not fully. George had the sense that if he touched one of them, his fingers would sink in as if he were grasping dough. The second man was sturdier in the shoulders and a touch taller, and the light around him made his lighter red hair look even more blonde. "Fred thought I'd do it better. You get on back, Fab, I'll handle the neph here."

"He did not," said Fabian Prewett, highly offended. "I'm considerably more qualified to-"

"Ah, that's right," said his brother with a scoff. "You were a _prefect_."

"OI, there-"

"Which is exactly why I'm a better choice," Gideon Prewett said smugly.

"You cannot hold it over my head for all eternity."

"Oh, can't I?"

"Look," interrupted George, feeling dizzy. He knew the name, and the faces were too familiar. Before him were Charlie's shoulders, Bill's perfect jaw, Molly Weasley's eyes and mouth and larger versions of her nose. He'd seen photographs, but here was flesh, or nearly so. His mother's brothers were certainly unexpected, both strangely foreign and familiar and at the moment, decidedly unwelcome. "I was- this is serious business-"

"_He_ was quite keen to come himself but we set Black right," said Gideon firmly, testing the boards of the shop and looking keen for himself. "This is business for family."

Fabian snorted, waving his hands dismissively. "He had his chance anyway-"

"Some things worth dying for such-"

"Didn't quite make it through the thick skull-"

"That's a Prewett skull for you, excellent for denting walls-"

"Ah, lookit," Fabian mulled in delight, "he makes faces like Molly when he's angry-"

"Mulish, innit?"

George was muddled, but not that much. "I WANT MY BROTHER!" he snarled, face uncharacteristically ugly.

The figures of his uncles ceased their back-and-forth. Fabian's features softened, Gideon's grew stern.

"'Swounds, we sort of gathered that," said Gideon, who seemed suddenly commandingly paternal, although by his appearance he was a few years younger than George was now.

"Come along," chided Fabian. "You can't be thinking it's a good notion."

"Nobody ever listens to Beedle the Bard," Gideon said mournfully. "You think you'd figure out after enough bedtime stories this is a _really bad idea_. And you've been doing so well, George-boy."

"No, I haven't," he said heavily.

They exchanged twin-ish looks, and George felt a pang of loss.

Fabian's features rearranged themselves into a gentle smile that looked something like Ginny's. "Do you think he had an easy time of it, working it out so you wouldn't bring him here? It's a hard magic to fiddle with, this old stuff of dreams, but he did."

"Our nephew," Gideon announced to the Forest at large, very unnecessarily, pride-puffed.

It sounded like Fred. "Why wouldn't Fred want to come?" George demanded, simultaneously suspicious and petulant. "I'm George. He's Fred. What nonsense are you lot feeding him?"

Gideon snorted. "Well obviously he'd like to see you. But he loves you."

"He shows up, you're buggered," Fab added.

George twitched his wand. "That's a new one."

They sighed, one after the other, distinct but harmonious sounds. "If you were trying to call him from behind the veil to ask for suggestions for your WonderWitch product line-"

"-And he's got them," said Fabian, rolling his eyes.

"That'd be one thing-"

"That's the point!!!" he exclaimed, feeling as if he'd finally stumbled upon the right answer in McGonagall's class and was now going to get his way, "That's exactly- I need- I'm in sore need of advice on our Elephantine Engorgements-"

"And we'd be happy to provide it," said Gideon smoothly.

"Nice try, though," his brother added encouragingly. "You really think," Fabian continued in a far more careless air, "you'd ever be able to let him go again?"

"No, George. 'S- no."

That was that, then. Legs giving out, George plopped down on the table, sending fireworks crashing to the ground. Hope fizzled. "One sorry conversation," he muttered. "That's all." He had a sudden, sneaky notion of trying again and realized, as he went to roll it, he no longer held the Resurrection Stone. Down on his hands and knees, he scrambled, feeling the leaves, the twigs, the stones sticking out of the thick-packed dirt of many years. "No," he muttered, reaching his hands for it. "NO!"

The Stone might as well have never been there. He could not so much as find the hole in the ground he'd plucked it from.

"Get up, George Weasley," said Gideon Prewett quietly.

Breathing suddenly hard, he did. He charged at the forms of his uncles, to rail at them, expecting to clash into something soft and slightly yielding.

Instead he felt sunshine on his face and hands, which suddenly moistened under a morning dew that smelled like Deverill Devilish cologne and sweat. He hit a tree.

When he opened his eyes, their faces were still above him. "C'mon, George," encouraged Fabian.

He compromised and sat up.

They swarmed above him, looking huge, faces fearsome as an old photograph.

"Don't-"

"-you-"

"-dare."

He waited for something beyond the finger-wagging, wondering what precisely he was meant not to dare, while he tried to work out who'd said what. George had never quite appreciated how hard a task that was.

"Hairbrushes that knot up your hair, shampoo that makes your hair greasy, firewhiskey that tastes as awful as usual but can't get you drunk, chewing gum that makes your teeth disappear," Gideon rattled out of nowhere. "There you go."

"'S not our job to remember the cute names," Fabian half-apologized, flashing a smile. "You've been neglecting the simple thing. S'more food products, clean old fun. Prank-products for coordination." George wasn't sure what he meant with the last.

"Bottle veela hair-shine," Gideon recalled, holding up his finger. "Girls'll love it. Try a snack so hot'll curl your hair- last for weeks, like it or not. Shrinking Socks- think about that one, and other cures for delusions of grandeurs- most of these are yours, really, that's Lily Evans'," he smirked.

Fabian moved as if to correct him, then let it slide. "Monitoring devices, to track your target-"

"They'll backfire," his brother warned. "Prefects'll use them, but the Hit Patrol might cough up Galleons for 'em-"

"Tablets that hold gallons of water, for a fast flood. Diaries that write back- I know-" Prewett interrupted himself hastily, "but your sister liked it enough, before the nonsense. Horse Feathers- quills'll write garbage pages of parchment, but there'll be something to turn in…"

"More fireworks," said Gideon with the glee that came from a love of explosions. "Miniature ones, lots of uses for those little surprises. Send messages across the Great Hall with a bang. Pretty ones, for the girls, or silent ones even. You haven't done those since your brother crossed over."

"Since he died," George corrected furiously, fists grounding into the dirt.

"So did we," said Fabian, with light surprise.

"It's not a picnic, but we are alright."

"It isn't FAIR-"

"Oi," they said, very softly, and smiled at him gently, his mother's brothers who had died like heroes. Like Fred.

"We know," they said together, and he almost cried out because it was much too much, to see and hear them together when Fred was a forever away. He didn't bother, because it would have been his voice alone, at best with an echo from the Forest, which was strangely silent.

They didn't look that alike, the Prewett twins, but while they smiled like Molly George suddenly lost track of who was who.

"Believe us-

"He'll be waiting-"

"And Fred means to wait a good, long time, hear?"

"But you know he's there, now- we're living proof-"

"Not living, exactly-"

"But really stop worrying-"

"You'll come out all right-"

"And maybe you'll think right, too, now-"

"It's all in you anyhow-"

"_Get it_, flobberbrain!!" bellowed Fabian, for George knew him from Gideon where he hadn't a moment before. For one heartbeat he looked almost envious. Vanishing, he backed through trees into shadow and fog. "You get it the best of all of us, be _happy_- love to Moll…"

Gideon grinned cheekily, thumbing his newly transparent nose. "I wouldn't say he's right, but the man's not exactly wrong. Never wrong. _Prefect_," he scoffed, before softening. "You get to live, Georgie. It's the toughest- but maybe the best too," he considered, as his voice faded. "Don't pass it up. G'on, now." The strong-jawed man, handsome like Bill had been, grinned at him like his sister- _like Fred_, George realized in a startled moment as for a shimmering second he thought his uncle someone else entirely. "And get yourself a girl!" Like his twin, Prewett faded into the Forest.

"O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O""O"

He saw Snitches.

George jerked upright in shock and found himself in a considerable amount of pain in his spine. A horrible squeaking was coming from somewhere.

The shelf had toppled completely on top of him and he was pinned fully under-it, smelling smoke and sweet dreams. His magenta shop-robes were drenched so thoroughly they looked black. He looked about for the source of the liquid, spotting atop the fuchsia sap and violet fume spilling out of a multitude of half-charred boxes with remains of the pictures of winking roguish high-seas wind wizards and at least the legs of what had been the image of a scantily clad witch.

It looked like he'd have to entirely restock their Patented Daydream Charm collection.

That, he thought, with some measure of relief and grief, explained a lot. His immediate disappointment as this meant he'd be unable to use one of the Charms to help him sleep, which was a damn shame as they typically involved him and Fred merrily skipping off into the sunset with a pair of Fleur's veela cousins for each of them. Perhaps, however, that was a good thing.

George looked around, a Catherine-wheel still spinning where it had trapped itself against the far war. The insistent squeaks were coming from the barrels of Pygmy Puffs, which seemed to be on fire.

He stared at the wall, debating whether to laugh or cry. Unable to choose, he decided instead to shove the shelf off him and douse the miniature puffskeins. He wondered, idly, what else he could pygmy-size, thinking vaguely of nifflers and Blast-Ended Skrewts.

He looked at the remains of the contents of their potions cupboard, Galleons-worth he'd demolished in minutes, and resisted the Molly-like impulse to sigh.

Wherever Harry left the Stone, he suspected it was bound to stay there. As it well should, if Cadmus was any indication.

It wasn't his first bad idea. Probably wouldn't be his last.

Ron should really stop telling him things, though. Bit like dangling a wand in front of a goblin.

The little fizzle of dry hope had hurt, and as he recognized that, George felt something break.

_Five years, Fred._

He clung to the thought a moment, eyes closed, and then realized the break was glass under his foot. He moved quickly, catching a scent in the air.

He sniffed, hoping oddly to inhale Deverill Devilish cologne but remembering perfectly well adding that scent to the sensory element of the Wonderwitch daydream charm.

His nostrils found only something that smelled like honey, burnt rice and witch's perfume in the air and realized with dawning horror it was him and the liquid seeping deeply into his skin and his best shop-robes. There was a touch of the cheap smell of the knock-off Felix as well, and he wondered about that- the odds of a dream of his without Fred in it, and the oddities in the back of his mind.

He breathed the crispy shop air and decided to get himself cleaned up and some sleep before worrying about the shop. Verity'd be here in the morning; she was excellent with messes. He couldn't remember why he'd ever fired her.

George reminded himself to ask his mother if her brother Fabian had been a prefect. Not a particularly good one, he suspected.

He kicked at a Daydream box and the remains of a Lockhart-ish wizard winked up at him. George hesitated, and blinked. "Thanks," he told himself, the night, and the Pygmy Puffs, and headed to wash up.

Inspiration, he decided, _hurt_.


	6. VI

a/n: this should be the longest span ever between chapters; sorry for the slow update- college got kicking, so work, schoolwork, crew, play auditions (Hermione in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale) and so this took a while to write.

Actually, must apologize- I had to ban myself from reading fanfic to get this finished, so if I normally follow your story and you're looking for me, going hey, what happened to write-more-update-soon if you're not gonna read, well, this is way.

A startlingly difficult chapter to write, and as well, the longest so far. I would expect the longest period; none of the others look to be going in this direction. The chapter involves a thematic shift, I suppose, and an adjustment after the last chapter to the march of time. Yes, I'm actually going somewhere with George's life, albeit slowly. Yeah, I know where- or ok, who, when, whatever. I have a theory (it could be bunnies.)

So:

Year Six- An ordinary day in the life of George Fabian Weasley, age 26. August.

Read, enjoy ( I hope) and even if you don't like it, tell me your thoughts- please review!!

VI.

He opened the shop early, and alone.

Too early, George decided, as he realized belatedly he was buttering his muffin with his wand. Quickly, he wiped the melting yellow off on a magenta shop robe lying nearby. Sparks fizzled in his muffin. He considered it deeply before biting into it again, but sleepiness and its toasty goodness won out over concerns for his well-being. He munched and mulled, feet propped up on the counter and chair back against the wall.

The front bell chimed out the roof-blowing opening notes of the _Wizarding Suite_ with only a touch less force than the actual tuba, and Ron strolled in, stretching his legs with full strides long adjusted to his lankiness.

"Prophet," said his brother without preamble, tossing the paper at him. George caught it without looking up from his buttery wand, the muffin secured between his teeth as he did so. Opening the paper, he pulled at the comics and shook it out from the rest of the leaflets, dropping the rest of it on a wastebin. He knew most of the headline makers and preferred to get it from them.

After another bite of the muffin and a cursory glance at the wagging ink tails of Odyss the Crup and Ulyss the Kneazles, who noticed his scrutiny and increased the pace of their circular chase through the comic panels, he picked the coupon advertising page out of the trash as well. Then he went back to reading and enjoying his remaining few minutes of peace.

He was in the middle of Martin Miggs' latest misfortune when his brother turned to him in confusion. "George?"

"Why's there butter on my robes?"

"Ermph," shrugged George through a mouthful of steaming muffin, vaguely waving his still-buttery wand while checking his watch.

The heat of the day was already rising; Fortescue's, though it was run by a Fawcett now, would make a killing.

This time of year, so would they.

"Your muffin's not supposed to turn that color," Ron observed. "Reckon that'll set anything else glowing?"

"Tastes better," George growled back through a mouthful. He was grouchy in the mornings, because he never knew which obliviating dream, nightmare or lack thereof would send him bounding out of bed before an eyeblink reminded him there was no second bed anymore, and on which ones there was no need for a moment to remember. The latter were increasing. He didn't know which ones he hated more.

"Really?" Ron asked curiously, flicking the butter off his robes with a swish of his wand. "Give it here, George, I've had PrestoandPoof!Oatmeal every morning this week… honestly, I wish Hermione'd let me get a house elf, they're dead keen on me and keep asking…"

Reluctantly, he broke off a piece of his remaining half of buttered muffin. Ron tried it with pleasure before standing to yank on his robes. "'S great, actually, George, got s'more?"

He was debating how to make money off his new discovering when the tuba-chime blared out as the door swung open. An early straggler seemed to be wandering in already; but quickly George realized it was Verity, cheerful as she pulled back her hood. "Third week of August," she said happily by way of entrance. "You should see them at Flourish and Blotts, they're having the worst time with their order of The Cursed Book of Curses. The manager's in St. Mungo's and the poor night stocker was on the Knight Bus when it ran into that Millbank Tower last week, so they're setting up barricades before shopping season." Frowning at the Nummy Niffles, who were squeaking hungrily in their barrel, she reached over to feed them. "I love August," she sighed.

"August's a good month," Ron mulled, snatching another chunk of George's muffin with the one arm that had made it into his robes so far. George looked at him askance, but kept nibbling while sliding the rest of it away . "What do you think about August?" he asked in a carefully muffled manner, expression hidden in fabric.

"Propose already," George ordered, rolling his eyes back to the paper. "And as for August, I like the money we make in it."

"And you like the ickle firsties," threw in Verity, smiling. "You think they're precious."

His expression, complete with lip curl, suggested otherwise. "Ron, check Ver's contract, I'm positive there's a footnote on her not using the word 'ickle' when she genuinely means adorable."

She tossed a squealing Niffle at him. It hit his newspaper, and the miniature black snuffle-pet bounced off to roll off along the floor before righting itself and scurrying towards a dropped Knut. Ron, as usual, ignored him, busy twitching as he found he had tried to put his head through the arm of his robe. "If I propose in August, she'll wonder why I didn't wait for her birthday. Won't she? Should I wait for her birthday? Verity, do women like to be proposed to on their birthday?"

"Women like to be proposed to, generally," she corrected, fluffing her fringy hair. "But only when they want to be proposed to. Which may or may not be on their birthday."

Ron's head popped up in the right hole and as he stuffed the rest over his jeans and jumper properly, he looked nervously at his older brother, who shrugged at him in a 'good luck, mate' brand of way.

Verity cast her gaze about the tidy shop. "No one's been in yet?"

"No," scoffed Ron, who had not been in yesterday and failed to notice the touch of anxiety in her voice. "'S early. George would have waved his buttery wand at them and made them disappear." Smoothing the robes which he'd gotten on properly, he looked at George for confirmation when he failed to say anything, which he seemed to be doing more than not this morning.

His brother had lifted the paper in front of his face again, hiding.

"He was late opening yesterday, and someone actually was waiting," Verity informed Ron, running her fingers through her short blonde hair as she flipped through the accounts book and verified the presence of the proper products with precise little wandflicks that worked wonders, though she hadn't been magic quite enough for Hogwarts.

"Slug-a-bed," Ron scolded, clearly delighted.

The paper lowered. "I know Mooncalves who spend more hours awake than you," George retorted with a skeptical eye. If he had known any Mooncalves, it might well have been true. Ron was never there before he opened, sleep-happy and slow to leave his someone. "Verity's referring to a charming incident over raisin purple polish-induced toenail growth which is easily irreversible - unless a future Azkabanite name of Kevin, aged ten and three-quarters and one of your ickle preciouses, Ver- note the sarcasm I invoked there, do try for that if you mean to keep the job this time-" She laugh-snorted, the threat was an hourly one, "happened add some of his father's Permanent Stick Solution to our bottle. Madam Bagshot, apparently, does not want her toenails deep violet and seven inches long in a daily capacity. More's the pity, she was loads more interesting."

"Seven inches," whistled Ron, tickled. "Jolly impressive."

George looked up, but refrained from the joke quivering behind his lips over the pathetic simplicity.

"So's the summons he's expecting from the Wizengamot," hummed Verity, drifting about with a few last instant dust-zapping charms.

At once he crumpled up the paper and tossed it at her. "Go do stock, Verity," he scowled.

She dodged and picked up the paper from the floor. "Oh, no, Mr. Weasley," she said back sweetly. "Go on and check that contract of mine, stock's not in it." Her amused expression moved towards equally cheerful annoyance. " I've _been_ telling you, George, hire a stockboy."

He wouldn't. He frowned over at her. She'd been a lot easier to handle, once, when continually trying to pretend she could tell Fred and him apart when very clearly, she hadn't the slightest. Unfortunately he didn't have the fun ability to befuddle her by pretending to be Ron and vice versa, since his friends would have him to Mungo's in a jiffy if he started in on something like that. The problem was that there was nothing wrong with the idea, as he was too busy for it himself, and Ron too with his Auror nonsense, and he'd had to promote Verity to get her back. So stock was somewhat backed up, but he loathed the idea of someone new doing the careful counting and lining up of products he and Fred had laughingly slaved over in their early weeks. They doubly tested half their Skiving selection faking injuries to get the other to do more than his fair share.

Before he stuck his foot in sludge by promising to consider it, and thus guarantee she'd hound him until he actually did it, the front door swung open and three small faces poked in, trailed by an equally small dark-haired woman. They gazed about, dumb-struck, and jumped as the pounding chords of the doorbell rang out.

"Welcome to Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!" In a flash George Weasley was on his feet, bowing with a flourish before the startled kids and winking at the witch as he presented her with a large orange flower. She flushed an even brighter version of the shade. "Watch it, giant squid ink in there- squeezed it myself from the one at Hogwarts," he elaborated cheerfully as he turned his gaze to the oldest boy.

Verity raised her wand lazily; outside a first-customer of the day firework exploded. In seconds, they knew, the bang and lights would draw most other children dragged to the Alley to beat the crowds for school shopping. They set them off every once and a while, with a particularly impressive display planned for noon-ish this time of year, which drew the largest amount of attention, including occasionally a few Wizarding Hit Patrolmen called over regarding complaints about the noise and glare. At the moment the small pink pinwheel explosion only made their early arrivals jump more nervously.

"There's a giant squid at Hogwarts?" the boy repeated, horror etched on the lines of his petite face. He tugged his mother's robes. "Mum, you said we cross the lake to get there…"

"Erm, different lake!" chirped George swiftly. "Have a glance at our plushy squids over there, you'll see they're actually quite friendly-"

Ron shot Verity a desperate look; George had confused the plush squids with the Squishy Trolls. The Trolls were indeed friendly, gifts intended for a sweetheart perfumed only lightly with Amortentia; the plushy squids were for enemies, and attacked with suction action. She slipped from the shelf she was re-sorting, which held books that elaborated on Babbitty Rabitty's merry escapades in the Unforbidden Bramble Bush with his multitude of hopping friends, including the infamous pot, until the owner tapped her wand on page number 317 to access her diary.

"Are you going to be a first year, dearie?" she crooned to the oldest, before George grabbed a plushy squid to brandish at him. "You'll want a look at our Basic Blaze box, lovey, all the first years bring them…"

"Those are fireworks," Ron chimed in from afar, picking up the remains of the paper and taking George's seat and the remains of his muffin. He'd learned enough of sales to know not to swarm. Soon enough, they'd have more business than they could handle. It was a good thing the Hogsmeade branch was only open in the busy school-year season, but having been officially proclaimed an Auror after an age of non-official, probably overpaid assistance, Harry'd be wanting him about more.

Besides, Ron was very preoccupied managing the confusing business of being a boyfriend.

"Ron!" his brother hissed at him, jabbing his hand at entering customers. The rest of their unnecessarily small staff, who answered directly to Verity, weren't in just yet; Mariana Aubrey in particular had a tendency to be hideously late but fluttered her eyelashes at George and Ron every time he thought about firing her. Ron sprang upright, smiling in the way Hermione called endearing and which made Ginny gag.

It was a busy day, but then they all were. Even on the slow business days, something tended to explode or leak a repugnant odor that required hours of precise magical repair or, worse, in Verity's opinion, George would enlist Ron in a slapped-together, cockamamie idea, like most of the ones sold in WWW, and then the entire place would have to be carefully magically cleaned up. Carefully, once again, because a large amount of the goods in the shop were flammable, and although Ron was excellent at Scourging, he still occasionally Scorched instead.

The usual stream of people was a delighting flood today. Most faces did not have names to go with them, but George knew the fifth year with the prefect badge who bought the entire line of Skiving Snackboxes was a Stebbins, and he vaguely recognized a few redheaded third cousins buying the mock Sorting Hats- the more expensive ones sang a small ditty, composed by Ron, though he'd never admit it to Harry- that toy swords encrusted with red glass could be yanked from by any eager Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, or Gryffindor-to-be. He liked the looks of the skeptical twelve year old girl who skimmed by the WonderWitch aisle to stare hungrily at the fireworks, and the Muggle father with a soon-to-be-student, who was worse than his own father as he insisted on following his curiosity and ignoring the sign to not test the Edible Biting Teacups.

Verity had been right, though the word 'precious' did not come to his mind. He did like seeing the first years best of all, all but dancing with glee at their soon-attendance at the most magical of schools and clutching volumes penned by Spore, Jigger, Scamander and occasionally Professor Vindictus Viridian. Their parents followed, bogged down with packages of new robes and cauldrons from pewter to gold. Harried already, they would be begged for Potter Scars and Vampire Smiles for the firstie's very own (real blood-sucking action, on the last) or joke Galleons that sent leaks running down pants pockets. Many, while their mothers' read the Skiving Snackbox labels to determine how to know if their children were using them to fake sick, bought Expanding Broomsticks, strictly banned at Hogwarts for letting the first years sneak around the rules.

George was relieved to see no sign of Kevin-the-polish-ruiner, though actually he'd found a soft-spot for him. Very creative, in a cruel sort of way, mixing the product and potion as the boy had. The future of the business, lads like him. And worse. Future competition. The soft-spot went away.

It was a good day, good enough not to break for lunch, though he sent Verity with Galleons over to Fortescue's to fetch them all milkshakes- vanilla for her, chocolate for Ron, strawberry for him (because it was pink).

The early evening was surprisingly preoccupying. "George!" Ron bellowed from the register with too much glee, as the milkshakes were long gone.

Only idly curious, he excused himself from the Beauty Ointment selection and the questioning gaggle of blushing seventh year girls, who hadn't, he had to remind himself, even been at Hogwarts when he and Fred left.

He stopped in his tracks as the witch talking to Ron, a small boy latched onto her robe skirts, turned to smile at him as his brother told them of the proprietor's swift approach.

"Lords," said George, staring as he strode forward. "You're huge."

Teddy beamed, and shyly waved.

Reaching them, George bent to his level. "Hullo, Mrs. Tonks," he said pleasantly, eyes on the little Metamorphagus' shop-robe colored hair and not on the still-lovely woman with him, who he gave a little wave. "Teddy Lupin! Is that fair, growing up when your Uncle George isn't looking?"

The boy wasn't sure how to answer that exactly, but remained rosy-cheeked and lit up as George gave him a slightly swaying nudge in the shoulder. "What're are you now, Teds, seven?" he asked with a wink.

George Weasley could never mistake how much time had passed since the year of Teddy Lupin's birth, but it was worth it to see the flicker of small pride in the kid's eyes as he held up five still-round fingers and one extra from his other hand. He loosed his lips and briefly revealed gaps between his white teeth. "Can I have some of Harry's scars to eat?" he asked eagerly, pointing to the bin of edible lightning bolts.

Although he had no idea what Andromeda's policy on sweets were, he beckoned with his wand and had a handful zipping over in an instant. A boy by the barrel snatched at them unsuccessfully as they whizzed towards Teddy. "You know your Galleons are no good here," he heard Ron say softly to Mrs. Tonks, who had moved to say something, and George gave her a quick smiling nod.

"Mrs. Tonks, ma'-"

"Please," she said, with a flash of her daughter's smile. "Call me 'Dromeda, gentlemen. I feel old enough all without you strapping young men reminding me I was at school with your parents."

Teddy was fingering the Puffskeins, distracted, and George, with a ruffle of the boy's magenta tousled curls, straightened with a spring. "'Dromeda, I simply won't believe you a day older than twenty-seven."

Ron scoffed. "Oh, c'mon, George, Verry's twenty-se-" He stopped, charmingly. "And seeing you beside our lovely shop assistant, I've got to put you at no more than twenty-five."

She laughed, a ringing haughty sound with a hard edge. "Flatterers," she accused, kindly and appreciatively, for there was grey in her hair she did not bother to hide and long lines in her face from losing those she loved. But Andromeda had been raised with a grace in taking compliments.

"Grams, look, it's a Sludge Bludger like Harry gave me!" yelped Teddy with delight, finger poised over the case latch to loose them. George caught Verity's eye, and his assistant slipped swiftly towards Harry's godson, who was rapidly recovering from any residual shyness.

Teddy under supervision, he turned to the boy's grandmother. "Well, 'Dromeda, what brings you to our humb-"

Oliver Wood burst through the doors in full Puddlemere regalia, brown hair mussed upright in all directions and face contorted enough behind the dripping sweat that a Red Cap might well have been munching on his leg.

It took a moment for the bustle of the shop to stop for him, but his frantic appearance and the broomstick he was clutching and brandishing as means of getting through the crowd quickly drew attention.

George scarcely looked up as the Keeper strode towards him, not noticing the children he pushed through yelping in recognition of a player on the English side.

"George?" Ron queried, as he'd always been leery of his brother's friend's sanity, which, George had maintained, resulted from his sense of inferiority in having taken Wood's slot on the team. Surveying his manic, dervish approach, George reckoned Ron might have been in the right.

He stopped in front of the Weasley's. "Alicia Spinnet's in love with me!" he declared, looking frightened.

George, in lieu of Fred, turned to Ron, who was fingering his wand. "You know where the love potion antidotes are, maybe get a number nine, Ron? Was it Katie who slipped it to her, Oliver, I knew I shouldn't have sold her those-"

"She hasn't been slipped anything," Wood said briskly, waving a hand dismissively. "'Least I didn't reckon so," he considered, looking to Ron. "What's a number nine do, and what'll it do if she hasn't had any Amortentia or the lighter stuff?... Reverse it anyhow…? I dunno…" He wiped sweat from his brow, pushing up his likewise soaked hair.

"Er, Oliver," tried George, who was slightly confused, especially as he'd been carefully contemplating for a few weeks now how to go about asking Alicia up to Hogsmeade for the seasonal opening of their branch there and maybe some tea. He kept his voice soft. "You're saying Alicia- our Alicia from school- genuinely- feels the same way about you as you do about your broomstick?"

"YES!" punched out Wood, utterly unaware of the slack-jawed shop-goers, one of whom had picked up a pink Nasty Noting Quill, making up his audience. "Exactly! Now, what do I say? What do I do? Wh-"

"Why are you asking him?" interrupted Ron in bewilderment, jerking his thumb at George.

Wood stopped, ignoring the sharp tug on his sleeve. "He's good with girls."

"What? No," protested George. "You're confusing me with-" He cut off, pensive. "Go ask Percy."

Wood snorted. "George," he said earnestly. "_Please_." George supposed Wood would be against mixing the professional and personal by asking fellow international Quidditch players for advice.

So he was all Oliver had, when it came to this, unless he became desperate enough to seek out Roger Davies, winner of Witch Weekly's Best Smile award for the year. He measured his friend in silence for a second.

"Mr. Wood? Your autograph?" Teddy Lupin broke in loudly, holding out an ink-blotted parchment pried from the depths of his grandmother's purse. His green hair bobbed by the startled player's shoulder. "Could I have it?"

Wood blinked. Then without pause he automatically took the quill extended in the boy's hand and flourished his name onto it without a glance. "Did you know she fancied me?" Wood demanded of the Weasleys while brandishing the quill, looking more murderous than George'd seen him since Diggory took the Snitch in Oliver's seventh year. Despite Verity's best attempts, a line was trying to form behind Teddy, mostly of older boys shoving one another.

"I did," said Ron, and they whirled on him. He shrugged at them. "Hermione reckoned so a couple years back. You've been seeing her, haven't you?"

He hadn't had any idea and he didn't particularly like that Ron had, even if it was courtesy of Hermione. George turned back to face the Keeper, who impossibly looked still more appalled and had sweat still dangling "Apparently," allowed Wood, with the air of sincerest shock. George gathered Oliver'd had no idea himself, and felt better. Mixed signals were horrible things; he'd lost more potential dates to assumptions he and Verity were a couple. "I… she comes to my games…and… we- but she's always gone to Angelina's too," he added hastily.

They had a captive audience, literally, actually, as they were standing right by the cash-out line and no one was there to accept Sickles. Verity was pretending to sort the Puddings of Pain in order to eavesdrop without need of an Extendable. "Ron, George," interrupted Andromeda Tonks firmly, clutching Teddy's hand and putting her other on his head to halt his continuous hopping since Wood had walked in. She glided by towards the entrance, towing her grandson whose tousled curls blinked Puddlemere gold. "Grand seeing you, I'm afraid we have to-"

"No, don't leave!" he ordered, back-tracking from his directness at the responding flash in her eyes. "Please, stay, this'll only be a second. I always thought Katie fancied you?" he mused at Oliver, who went pale.

"Her too??"

They looked to Ron, who backed away, eyebrows raised in clear disbelief. He tugged Teddy, who had been continuously flitting about Oliver with a nearness and speed other children were vainly trying to imitate, a distance back.

"What do I do?" Wood repeated, huffing.

"Dunno," reflected his friend, genuinely baffled. He was smart enough to bail before situations like this arose. "Run?"

"I've done that," Oliver expressed, surprised. "I wasn't sure about going back?"

"Going ba-? You're _joking_."

A vein in Wood's forehead twitched. "Should I be? George, I'm missing practice right now- I run practice. Without me, there is no practice. We're going to lose to the Kestrels come Thursday without my practice," he announced, voice rising in pitch, "and lose our hold on third rank it's all- Alicia- Spinnet's- ruddy- fault!"

Actually, George remembered, it could be Katie Bell's; she'd ordered a heap of their white-lies cures too. In Wood's current state, though, it was probably not in her best interest to bring that up. The shoplife had picked up again, but far too much attention was heaped at them for George's liking. He'd have to wrap this up.

Ron had inched away, out of the clutches of Wood's hands should he start reaching for throats, but his fellow Weasley was tickled. "Oliver," he exclaimed brightly. "You came to see me in the middle of practice?" Without waiting for Wood's sullen nod, he continued. "You really do think a lot of me."

"'Course," he replied brusquely. "You're a better Beater than most in the English league. It's this girl business- we can still call them girls, right?" he asked anxiously.

The man could not be twenty-eight. George considered him with concern. He owed Fred ten Galleons; obviously Wood never would outgrow his obsessive competitiveness. "Are they _twelve_?!"

Oliver's gleam of insanity dulled, and his shoulders sunk in a sighing forward roll. "Tell me what to do," he pleaded.

The Quidditch player asking him for advice on women. George reminded himself to keep this moment priceless; he could practically hear, or perhaps was genuinely hearing, Ron muttering, "I'm the one with the relationship…"

"Oliver," sighed George, shaking his head. "You're missing practice. Think about this. You held practice in a hurricane when you played Peru-"

"That's true," chimed in a lingering boy, somewhere in the mid-range Hogwarts years George found it increasingly difficult to distinguish, who'd picked up a trick camera. "All over the Prophet-"

"Don't take the picture," George warned off-hand, not bothering to turn. "So think about this- you could be preparing to bash Kestrel brains out, and you're standing here instead. This once, get a grip that's not built into a broomstick. You, Oliver Wood, are _skipping Quidditch_-" The idea seeping through his brain, Wood's expression darted as if he would bolt and return to the air any instant. George positioned his foot to trip him if he tried. "Clearly," he announced to the shop at large, "you're either in love with me- absolutely understandable, what with my dashing good hole and pretty smile- or you're in love with Alicia."

Wood responded as if he'd taken a Bludger to the body. "She- she doesn't even play Quidditch anymore!" he sputtered, shaking himself so viciously he seemed to be trembling.

"Oliver," said the Weasley twin solemnly. "That's exactly why you should marry her."

Wood stopped his shuddering, falling as still as Grecian marble, down to the twitch in his lower left lid, and George thought for a moment Verity'd Stunned him. Instead he took a thoughtful breath and ran his damp robe sleeve across his brow, wiping the sweat. The camera snapped.

Verity rushed over as the young wizard howled in agony, trying desperately to shake the camera off as its hidden jaw chomped deep.

Wood let his arm swing down, like George, ignoring the screams. "I knew you'd help," he said, voice trailing. "I'm no good at this," he hopelessly waved his hands about in a manner that very much failed to be flowery, "game. I knew it, I knew I'd be damned if there's a game a Weasley twin can't win-"

"Be damned," advised George, who had no idea what Wood was talking about but was dreadfully sick of the word that had been singular for too long, "you should see my niece kick my derriere in Exploding Snap."

Oliver, distracted, failed to respond. "I've got to go," he blurted, wheeling around with intent as he spoke. "Thanks, George-"

"For what?" he shrugged dismissively, smiling at the magenta checkered floor, "you want my real advice, give an Incarnadinem Charm a try, you'd make a good redh- Wood?" George called, worried as he looked up to find Oliver and broomstick bolting through the crowd. "Wood? I wasn't- Barking," he declared, turning in Mrs. Tonks' general direction and finding only Ron. "Too many Bludgers to the b- where's Teddy?" he interrupted himself, seeing no sign of the boy or his grandmother.

"Left," Ron replied, looking triumphant, "I told you Wood was bonkers, George, Harry and I barely got him out of that incident with the Quafflepuncher referee-"

"Left?" he repeated, aggravated, "in which direction?"

His brother looked at him hopelessly. "They went out the front-"

Less viciously than Oliver, George bobbed through the shop-goers, grabbing something off a shelf and waving off questions about his relationship with the Puddlemere Keeper and the percent off on Balloon-Tongue Bubble Gum.

They hadn't made it very far, the straight-backed woman with the skipping boy's hand held firm in hers to keep from escaping her reach. George studied their silhouettes against the set of the sun and found his chest had clenched with a surprisingly satisfying reassurance at the lightness of Teddy's still-small feet.

He grinned and brought his hands to his mouth. "Hold up there!!" he called, jogging easy towards where they turned about in front of Whizz Hard Bookbinding. "Forgot something, Teds," George said, tossing a plushy squid at the boy as he neared. Teddy caught it with the hand not clenched in his grandmother's and promptly dropped it in the street. Its softly furred tentacles twitched their fluffiness in reaction to the grime. "Though I suspect," he said cheerfully, turning his full attention to Andromeda, who held onto the little Lupin whining to be able to grab his squid, now oozing quill-fillable ink onto the Alley cobblestones, "you may have been looking for something else. It's my pleasure to fulfill your slightest wish, 'Dromeda."

He briefly wondered if she was remembering him bleeding on her sofa, a hole in his head, from her expression as she finally let Teddy's hand slide free. With glee, he pounced on the squid, looking poised to pry it apart. "I'm afraid there's not much even you, George Weasley, could do for wishes of mine," she said calmly, and he thought not. Her mind was elsewhere.

He'd heard the Blacks did not age well, when they did manage to age, but Andromeda's beautiful face was pristine, touched only by laugh lines, care, and subtler, sharper lines about the eyes that had not been there six years before, when he and Fred had been introduced. But then, even if her grace under time and toil was half-owed to the Rosier side, Andromeda Tonks had not been a Black in a long time. "Not even the little wishes?"

George meant to sound charming, not wistful. Her eyes softened anyways. "If you have the time-"

"It's been a slow day," he assured her.

"Indeed?" she said, brows arched. "It's common for you to have players for England burst into your establishment for advice about their love life?"

"Relatively," he shrugged, Harry's godson was tugging at his shop robes at the mention of Quidditch and so he looked down as he continued speaking. "I really," he said with feeling, and a cringe at the thought, "worry about any children Oliver may have if they can't figure out which way to mount a broomstick- how's that, Teddy?"

"-can you get me tickets to a game, Uncle George?" the boy erupted after his succession of ''scuse me's', far more talkative than he had been before. His hair was squid-peachy and eyes a dancing blue in his merry round face, with a heart-shape hiding in the cheeks. "Oliver Wood!-"

"You see your Aunt Ginny's games all the time," Andromeda said, amused.

Teddy pulled a face. "She's on a _girl _team and it's no fun to root for- whoops…" He'd squeezed the squid too tightly against his chest; ink spattered all over his shirt proclaiming Cannons for the Cup, courtesy of his Uncle Ron.

"Oh dear," said Andromeda mildly, flicking her wand with clear pleasure to scrub him team. Over Teddy's protest, she turned back to George. "Harry thought you might have a suggestion for Teddy, we've been having a bit of a problem-"

"Grams!!"

"-breaking him of sucking his thumb." Teddy, horrified, groaned and made to bolt down the street in anger, but Andromeda's still-extended wand held him fast. He struggled against his silent bond for an instant, before pouting, while she continued speaking, "Enchanting it to a rotten egg taste hasn't worked on him anymore than Nymphadora, I believe she actually developed a liking for earthworm taste with time," a sunbeam passed across her lips momentarily, "but Stunning his hands hasn't worked either. He's considerably more patient than his mother- was- and so," Andromeda concluded, steadying her smile, "Harry believed, and I agree, you might have a more creative solution.

George wished he knew when he'd become the font of all wisdom. He'd have liked to savor the moment. He rubbed at his red hair- he'd let his mother cut it too short, and reminded himself to get its length back that night- and reached towards the deflated Teddy. His face was screwed up in a pout. "C'mere, kiddo," he said seriously. "We need to pow-wow…"

A few minutes on, having watched them safely go, he whistled back to the shop, a few hours till closing still, and announced to Ron he was in a Quidditch mood and that they'd be shutting early since Angelina was playing Ginny tonight. Ron was disinterested; his sister was playing the Cannons Sunday and that would determine if the orange fliers wound up in the finals or not. His brother claimed to be a Harpies' fan these days, but Quidditch face paint ran deep. And he had other concerns for that game.

"Good, you'll find out what's with Wood," said Ron, frowning over while racking the Daydream Charm shelf for a particularly requested one involving mermaids of the Grecian, decidedly not Northern, variety. Finding it, he looked over at his idle partner. "You wouldn't reckon- He's not actually gone to- propose?" He choked on the word.

George scrutinized him and picked up an Always-Bouncing Ball to toss from hand to hand, strictly forbidden at Hogwarts as Mrs. Norris spent far too much time chasing the things down the corridors. "Ronald Bilius," he announced, "if you try and beat Harry to it, you'll only muck it up. Much as I should enjoy seeing you squirm, I'm not- so- figure on this- she loves you, she'll have you, Merlin knows why, and so- hold onto your question. The secret is timing," he mulled, "at least I'm supposing that applies to nice surprises as well as explosive ones."

His brother stood straighter and gazed down his longer nose, very like Arthur's, with a slow wonder. "How'd you know Harry-"

"Oh I don't," said George casually, turning his wand and nodding off his shoulder to Verity to start clearing out the customers. "If he doesn't soon though- planning on Sunday, I reckon?- I'll have his scarred head hanging on my shop wall, Chosen One or no. And best friend or not, it'll be your brotherly duty to help me off him."

Ron's face reddened with dawning horror and indignation. The customer's Charm forgotten, he stalked away, probably out of range of the Anti-Disapparition Wards, distinctly murmuring 'eat slugs'.

Nothing and no one was stopping Ginny from finishing out her season. She wanted to make it to the League Cup for one last go. George thought Angelina, with the Arrows now, could probably take Gin and the Harpies, though- in fact he was rather counting on it.

So they closed up early, under protestation from late arrivals, and he went to the game and out for drinks after. Verity tagged along and they met up with Lee, too, and they talked some shop, some kind of snakes and ladders notion she had that wasn't half bad, really. It helped to have Lee around too, since he rarely saw Ver out of work.

He didn't know her anymore, the blonde woman who called him George and didn't look for Fred. He bought Katie drinks instead and sent back not-so-politely a steaming tiny cauldron sent over for Alicia before Oliver noticed. Alicia looked calmly smug and very pretty tonight, actually, with Wood's skittering arm tapping on her shoulder. He conversed in a voice that boomed and occasionally broke like a wind-brought wave, and though neither could be gotten off the subject of the Arrows-Harpies game- over disappointingly early thanks to the far superior Arrow Seeker- they were together.

There was a lot of this going on. George himself tried not to squirm as the Lynch bloke Angelina'd brought with her jovially threw his arm across her shoulders. She seemed to have a liking for Irishmen- or perhaps redheads.

Ron's edginess about Hermione, who worked late, was forgotten; it had been briefly re-directed but Harry had swept off with Ginny, purportedly towards Kings Cross, and Katie and Lee, expressions ranging from delighted for Bell and madly confused for Jordan, swept over to chat with Alicia and poor Wood. The Leaky Cauldron was noisy and merry, and George was glad to be sitting by his brother and business partner, though there was room to be gladder.

"How do you figure you got him to quit?" Ron wondered, holding up his thumb over his glass of firewhisky. "I thought Mrs. Tonks needed to up the flavor, even a little bloke as stubborn as Teddy can't keep it up if the thumb tastes like dragon dung or leprechaun stew…"

"I told him," said George briefly, himself thoroughly convinced Teddy was that stubborn, "sucking your thumb makes your ears fall off."

Ron roared, and Verity, making her wincing-amused face as she plopped down on the stool beside them, demanded, "He believed you?"

"He's six, the world's magic, what's cause and effect?" George shrugged, drumming his fingers lightly against the hole in his head. Ron looked at him thoughtfully.

"I_ knew_ I remembered you being a thumb-sucker-"

"Watch it, kneazle-breath. I have spiders in the storeroom and I'm perfectly willing to sic them on you."

"So?" said Ron, chin lifted defiantly. "I'm past that kiddy stuff."

"They're from your friend Hagrid…" Verity sang out, wiggling her fingers like spider-legs near his shoulder.

His brother jumped and excused himself very quickly, leaving the two of them alone.

"Ver," George, never one for awkward silences even amidst a rowdy crowd, rolled her name around behind his sip of butterbeer. "I've been thinking-"

"This won't end well," she affirmed immediately in a voice that carried over the bar buzz.

He caught her suspicious look to accompany her curtly amused answer and swiveled in his chair. "'Scuse me. I'm a Weasley twin. Whatever you're pondering is not what I'm pondering. I am anything but-"

"Predictable?"

"… Well, essentially. You're right, by the way."

"On which of the many things I say that you ignore?"

"I'm hiring a stockboy," he said flatly, pleased at how her thin eyebrows pulled up. "And a new shopgirl. A few more, maybe- I need to be less busy. We do."

"You're not going to try and fire me again?"

"No, but I am shipping you out-"

"Pardon?" she interrupted instantly, icy as Fleur in a foul mood. Hands on her hips, she narrowed her eyes at him from under her fringy blonde hair.

"You'll be running Hogsmeade. Our branch," he elaborated, "though to be fair you could probably manage the whole town." He waved his hand dismissively when she failed to speak. "You do more than Ron anyway with all his lollygagging with Harry and his evil wizards. Full partner. Your suname's not going on the shop, obviously, that'd be silly- what?" he asked, innocently twirling his wand.

Verity was watching him with an expression he couldn't put his finger on, but it might have been close to affection, or respect. It reminded him of someone. "George Weasley," she said, as if invoking him with his name. "You are a confusing man. And rather wonderful, I think-"

He grinned slantwise. "That's 'cause I've promoted you-"

"No, that makes you intelligent enough to recognize how slow you've been in taking so long. Which," she said thoughtfully, "is one of your problems. You should have asked out Alicia."

He frowned. "She and Wood'll be great. Wood's great."

She brushed her hair out of her eyes, enough so he could see her roll them. "You're not so bad yourself, George- that's _not_ a proposition."

"Good. I'm too confusing for you."

He was, too. He thought she liked Lee, who was a stand-up bloke. Wood was the good sort as well. George understood women a touch too easily to be fair with them, as he had a good fourteen fail-safe charms down pat without need to recourse to his wand. "Thank Merlin for it, too, your confusifyingness keeps me gainfully employed. More gainfully now," she added gleefully.

He hadn't mentioned a pay hike. Hopefully Hermione'd help him with the contract this time around. "Was a lot easier to be confusing when there were two of us," he mused towards the ceiling and she walked over to tap his shoulder with her palm. He jerked in alarm, then realized she was intending it to be a comforting pat.

"I'm sure," she sympathized. "Answer me this, though- what'd you bribe the Lupin kid with, and can I fire Mariana Aubrey?"

He reacted at that, most unpleased. "Mariana-"

"You bribed him with Mariana?" she dead-panned, wide eyed, and he was startled enough by her mock sincerity to let out a clip of a laugh, thoughts forgotten. He noticed Katie was trying to catch his eye, signaling Angelina wanted him to come over and meet Lynch.

He readied himself. "Set a Surveillance Spell on the thumb and told him we'd get Victor Krum over to get him flying on one of the Extendible Broomsticks I'd let him have, since 'Dromeda won't let Harry bring him a real one for another year at least. Teddy's all too ready to get more than three feet off the ground. He may break a wrist," he added thoughtfully, "but I can fix that too. Alright, c'mon, Ver," he said, with a nod to the table of his friends. "Come over with me."

She stood. "Can I fire Aubrey?"

"As you wish." George grabbed his mug.

"Good," Verity said resolutely. "You can do better than her. _She'd_ try and make you grow up, and then I'd be out of a job."

He choked on his butterbeer, and Wood had to jump up and clap him vigorously on the back.

He went back alone, though he didn't have if he'd tried, and re-locked the shop behind him with a smile that was still cheerful by himself.

George fell asleep quickly, for him, and slept happy if not, as ever, entirely easily.

It had been a good day, altogether, and all his dreams went well.


	7. VII

_A/N: Had to go back and edit this chapter since to have kids of age at Kings' Cross at the epilogue in DH, Percy needed to be married off already. Whoops. Now he is. ;D_

_Anyways, you're all cordially invited to accompany George Weasley to the wedding of one Ronald Bilius Weasley to Hermione Jane Granger. Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

VII.

"Do you like it?" Ron asked, punch-pleased with himself.

George stared down at the squiggly lump of flesh in the mismatched wrappings and swallowed. He either wanted to hug Ron or punch him.

It took a long sixty seconds to resist the latter.

His brother bounced on his heels. "It's an ear," he explained helpfully.

"Oh thanks," George heard coming out of his throat. "Here I was thinking it was a nose, and as I'm not short one of those that I know of, I didn't know what to be doing with it. An ear, though…"

Ron laughed nervously. "I fiddled with one of the Extendibles, s'all."

"Yourself?" the same voice responded, to George's continued surprise. He tugged on the lobe.

The ear twitched itchily in its box.

"Yeah, I didn't even go to 'Mione," his little brother responded, chest puffing a little. Obviously, Hermione or Verity would have taken Ron aside and kept the carefully buffed perfect-sized ear from going into the carefully packaged little box and far, far away from George Weasley. "I got Harry, Neville, Seamus and Dean cufflinks- I've got some of those for you too, to match- but I wanted to give this to you now, since-" Ron flushed, rueful, "-I finished it and didn't want to wait until Christmas or your birthday rolled around since that'd be almost another year."

"And now I'll match, too," said George, eyes very wide still. "All your groomsman'll have two ears," he continued. The words came out surprisingly amused, so Ron, though watchful, didn't note any bitterness. George hoped.

"I suppose," Ron agreed warily.

George poked the earlobe. It was soft and gave way a touch, like cartilage. It sprang back into shape with startling enthusiasm. He looked up. "It was… this was… really… sweet of you, Ron."

"Sweet?" Ron repeated, sounding strangled. "Have you turned into Ginny?"

"The workmanship's excellent," he blathered instead of answering, "thought for a second you'd found and fixed the old thing from somewhere over Little Whinging… which would've been a tad disturbing… really thanks."

"Are you going to try it on?"

Ron Summoned a mirror from the other side of the flat as George tentatively picked it up. It squirmed like bait on a hook in his hand.

He placed it against the long-healed over indent and heard a sucking noise. George slowly took the mirror from Ron and, thankful he was seated, met his reflection's gaze warily.

The man in the mirror had two ears. Tentatively he reached up to touch the filled hole.

"Well," said Ron, with a deep swallow, resting his arm on the fireplace mantle. "That's tha-"

Green flames sputtered down and out from the chimney, roaring out and lapping warmly against Ron's ankles. He edged away. George rocketed upright in his chair, alarmed by the noise

A vaguely female figure stumbled out in a cloud of soot, carrying a crate marked 'Highly Flammable.' She sagged under its weight, which blocked her face entirely. "Might give me a hand!" Verity growled in a tone that threw daggers. She was as perfectly punctual as ever.

George sprang up, eased it out of her grasp, and plopped it down on the floor with extra exuberance. Ron eyed the label on the box and the receding Floo fire with a disturbingly Hermione-like sigh.

George straightened and grinned at her.

"Stop grinning like an eejit, Weasley, clearly you haven't been looking at the Hogsmeade profi- gaACK." Her head shot forward, goose-like, and her light eyes went wide. "Merlin's beard. George? That is so- ooooh."

"What do you think?" Ron jumped in eagerly.

Her head turned to Ron before whipping back to fixate on George's ear. "Bit weird."

His hand went self-consciously to the side of his head. "Yeah, it has been a while since I've been symmetrical."

Verity patted at her hair, giving her something to do with her hands. "Why the sudden- the new- the-"

"'Earing aide?" provided George helpfully.

Her lip twitched, though whether towards a smile or a grimace he couldn't say. "Yes, that."

George jerked his thumb at Ron, who widened his eyes innocently. "Don't you like it?"

She looked warily at George.

"Mum's going to have kittens," he said, creating his own conversation. "Dad's brought it up himself- he's still hoping I'll be the one to marry a Muggle, though it's always a lark at their pubs, telling them how it blew off… the gas leak in the hot air balloon bit's never gone over all that well, but the ladies always go for the motorcycle explosion…"

"It was an idea, s'all," said Ron, his own ears red. George wondered if the new one did that and contemplated the sight of himself with only his right ear red.

"It's a nice ear," he offered, scratching it. Verity was still gaping, which was bothering him. George reached out and tapped the bottom of her chin. Her mouth closed.

"Let's hope," said Ron, with a dismissive eye roll that finally dispelled the awkwardness. "Now hear, if it's a bad ear and won't listen to you, lemme know and I'll box it."

Verity groaned while George, solemn-faced, replied, "Thanks, but I'm sound enough to box my own ears…"

"Alright then," said Ron, rubbing his palms together. "I," he began, paling, "have cufflinks to distribute, but seriously-"

"Now that's too much!" exclaimed Verity, covering her eyes. They turned to stare at her.

The silence pervaded the flat until she peeked between her fingers.

"Have we finally driven you up the wall?" asked George mildly.

"No- but- didn't you say ear-iously?"

Ron snorted vigorously and George bit down on his lower lip trying not to cough. "That may," he said as Verity turned pink, "be the worst pun I've heard in seven years without an ear to itch. Maybe that's the real gift, Ron- the end to the bad puns. I reckon I've heard more than most folks do in a lifetime-"

"Not if your parents named you Sirius," he said astutely, pulling his wand out of his robes pocket. "See you-"

"At the Burrow in sixteen hours for your magical matrimony?"

"Sixteen?" Ron repeated, shoulders stiffening. His throat bobbed. He rapidly backhanded the air in a fast farewell and hurled himself towards the stair door.

"What, how much time he'd think he had?" asked Verity, bewildered.

"Dunno," said George thoughtfully. "He did sleep through yesterday, after the bachelor party." Wizarding bachelor parties were always two nights before the wedding. A day was standard recovery time for most minor magical mishaps. "Maybe he's about to be sick again. Hope he grabs a handful of Puking Pastille halves on his way out."

"Hope he grabs the right halves," retorted Verity.

He smiled. "Did I tell you about the time Fr-"

"To Katie Bell?" interrupted Verity in a tone of exaggerated patience. "Yeah, you did," she finished more gently. "Why didn't you ask her to the wedding?"

"What, Katie?"

"Yeah, Katie."

"What'd I be asking her for?"

"So you wouldn't be going alone."

He gave her a rueful grin. "Verry-"

"Oh that's just weird," she cut him off, staring at his ear. "Really George. It's giving me the creeps."

"Are you changing the subject so I won't apologize again for this Charlie-thing?"

"No," said Verity, shaking her blonde head. "The ear's honestly creeping me out- ooh, it's twitching- lookat it, what'd Ron do? What's it, alive or somethin'? Or are you making it do that?"

He resisted the impulse to look in the mirror. "Oh, I'm making it do that," he said. Though he couldn't actually feel the earlobe, he thought it should be stretching. "I think."

"You're so much more charming when you're not sure of yourself," Verity replied. He tried to boggle his eyes at her. He thought it was very strange. She scrutinized him, sizing him up. "Go with that. And you're already wearing a tux. I think you'll do nicely tonight, George."

"Now I know you're plotting revenge for the Charlie-thing."

She was still staring.

"What?" he asked, actually exasperated.

"I'm not trying to be funny but-"

"Great start, there."

"Shut it- are you actually wearing that- thing?"

George ignored the crackle of the flames behind them, raising his voice as they seemingly got louder. "It's my brother's wedding. He made it for me. And look at you. Look at your face. 'S fun."

"George Weasley, stop waggling it at me!"

"Erm," said Harry from the fireplace, brandishing the arm with George's stain and wrinkle-proofed tux draped over it before him like a shield. "Do you want me to come back?"

"Hi, Harry."

"George," Harry greeted him warmly, with another nervous look at Verity, who rolled her eyes. Then he frowned, forehead lines breaking the famous scar. "Did- you grow back your ear?"

* * *

Angelina didn't say anything about the ear. She'd been Ron's Quidditch captain, and he'd gotten Hermione to make her a bridesmaid. They needed a couple extra, since Ron's brothers alone stretched the number of Hermione's friends to be called upon, and then there was Harry and Neville, as well as Seamus and Dean, who'd both sulked enough over not being in Harry's wedding party that their other year-mate had no intention of repeating that mistake. Ron seemed to determined to blow up the Burrow with grandiosity, and Hermione, amazingly enough, was letting him.

George would be walking Angelina back down the aisle, and watching her come up it. He swallowed. Something tickled his throat uncomfortably. He blamed the glob of frosting he'd snuck off the wedding cake as Winky and the Hogwarts house elves floated it off. (Ron had no choice but to pay for the catering. A few of the house elves broke down sobbing, soaking their tea towels right through, when Ron cajoled them into accepting the Galleons. Hermione was telling the story left and right, describing it earnestly as 'weeping with joy'.)

It'd been a laugh walking down with her in rehearsal, a Muggle concept none of the wizards could understand since not even magic could stop unpracticed things from happening at weddings. Suddenly, though, it seemed very weird, having both ears on his head with her in lilac on his arm.

He might've been Fred, with her, at any of their brothers' weddings.

"My bowtie spins," he told her quietly. "Want to see?"

She looked at him wryly. "Will it stop spinning before you have to go out?"

"Not likely."

"You possibly should save distractions for the reception."

A flirty response to that was easy, but this was Angelina. "I might," he said as casually as he could.

Her lips half-parted, and he tilted the left side of his head towards her, waiting for some further comment.

Parvati Patil, in front of them introducing herself to Charlie, the groomsman she was paired with, rustled her skirts and complained about the color. Charlie, face beet-red and grumpy at wearing a monkey suit, shot a plaintive look at them.

"Who's Charlie here with?" Angelina asked calmly.

George cast a questioning look at her, mind wandering and wondering. Charlie had been her Quidditch captain, and his too, briefly. "Norberta."

"Who?"

"A dragon- no, I'm pulling your leg- I let him borrow Verity to stave off all the 'ooh, working-with-dragons-is-so-dashing'."

She smiled skeptically. "Sure you're doing him a favor?"

George smirked back. "So he says, though you wouldn't think so. It seems he has some lady friend in Romania, but he didn't bring her." He shrugged. "Bill and I reckon she's a vampire."

Her dark brows shot up and back down in a flash of amusement. "Wish he had. That might've been interesting."

"Louder, at least," George said, picturing his mother trying to politely figure out if a vampiress meant sharp-toothed grandbabies or none at all. "Though the wedding's loud enough already, next to Harry's." She'd brought Lynch to that. "You're here with Aidan?"

"Oh, I threw him over," said Angelina cheerfully. "I brought Dillon Troy."

Ron's expression when Krum arrived at the Burrow for the wedding and kissed Hermione's cheek in congratulations rose unbidden in George's mind and planted itself firmly on Fred's twenty-year-old face. He erased it as quickly as it came. Apparently she was off of redheads then, and onto brunet Chasers fresh off the Irish side's third straight Cup run and making the gossip rags when they ought to be retiring. "Good on you. Be sure to introduce me, his sort's always good for marketing."

"His sort, hmm?"

"The please-sign-my-Quaffle sort. Like Krum, or one better, Harry. I'm making bundles off of Harry. You know what the bolties and potheads'll pay for the soiled nappies of my nephew, heir to the Chosen One?" His smirk faded under her even gaze. "Not that I would ever exploit family like that," he said hurriedly.

"Never," Angelina agreed, smirking herself.

A dramatic crackling and crunching came from behind them, and George swiveled to see Hermione hoisting up her skirts, which made her look like a doll shoved into an enormous frosted cream puff. It was a decidedly Muggle-inspired dress robe, more on the side of dress than robe, and she looked like George's idea of what Muggles imagined fairies and good witches to look like. Her cheeks glowed with a sunlit hue and George had never seen her hair more coiffed or her teeth so white.

"I'll kill him," she swore, trotting forward in her heels with an expression that managed to be condolatory and enraged simultaneously. "George, I am so, so-"

"Dazzling," he finished, winking at her and tugging on his ear with a slight shake of his head. "Miss Hermione Granger- and that's the last time I get to say it like that, I suppose- you are a grand witch and a beautiful woman. I can't think of a wizard who deserves you, so I'm afraid you'll have to make do with Ron. Who loves you tremendously, so it'd be a little silly to kill him, really."

Hermione studied him momentarily, then threw her arms around him and kissed his cheek. He could feel his cheeks go red. "You're exactly the sort of brother I never wanted and am very glad I'm getting, George Weasley."

"Getting? Ah, you always had us, Hermione." He battered at his red cheek and wondered absently if the fake ear was turning red too. Her eyes, George noticed with panic, were teary and knowing witches and their makeup, he blurted quickly, "Now, get back wherever you go and wait, before Ron steps out and I have to Obliviate him so he doesn't muck up all your luck seeing the bride."

"Oh, yes," she said, mixing warmth and nervous distraction as she stepped back and glanced at Angelina with a smile, "where's Ginny?" Her skirt dropping, she floated off.

Ron, looking sick, strolled out with Harry at his back to collect his groomsman.

"See you in a bit," said George congenially to Angelina, as he nodded to Neville he was coming. "Hey-" he started, struggling to find the words to say what should be, how he would have liked to see her walking with Fred through the Burrow's backyard with flowers in her hair. "-I like you in lilac."

"It's periwinkle," she said, rolling her eyes. "Go on, George."

* * *

He went to stand up for Ron, and help him stand up, and then found himself facing an evening of coming up with smart remarks for the ear questions murmured at him by Ron's friends and his big brothers.

"Holding up?" he repeated innocently to Rita Skeeter, wondering how in Merlin's name the old witch'd gotten into the Granger-Weasley reception. He had heard she'd retired to the social beat. He looked blankly at his empty hands. "Holding up- what, exactly?- wait a minute, let me see." George snagged a passing glass of champagne from the knee-level tray held by a passing house elf and balanced the base on his flat palm. He gave it a studied glance. "I seem to actually be very-" He let the glass and teeter and slosh onto the scribbling pad and quill, though not onto the woman's dress. She was a touch over the hill for him to find that particularly funny. The acid blue quill, Quick Quill's latest, went limp as it was soaked and started twitching spastically, squirting ink onto Skeeter's pale dress. "Ah. Possibly I'm not so good at this 'holding up' thing- here, let me-"

"No thank you," said Rita adamantly, moving quickly away from the napkins he was holding and clutching her champagne-soaked papers and limp quill. "I'll leave you as 'no comment'."

"Aren't you a dear," he said, in a bright tone, and, pretending to wave at Lavender Brown, steered himself away and after the departing house elf. George swooped up two champagne glasses, mostly to fill his hands and keep both away from the very tug-able, once-extendible ear and glanced over to the dessert table he'd departed to circle the dance floor. Ron and Hermione were murmuring, while Ginny keeping Victoire away from the heaping cake they hadn't cut yet and Harry jiggled two-month-old James gently. Fleur was nearer him, giving his second niece, Dominique, her floating teething ring.

He glanced away, and took another sip of champagne and relief.

A light, quick tap landed on his shoulder and he turned to see who had come up behind him. "George," said Katie Bell with a grin. "You're wearing a falsie?"

The laugh burbled out of him and he felt the instant urge to kiss her, which shook him to the core. He ignored it. "What," he said idly, "you'd rather the hole?"

"Holes have lots of possibilities."

He gaped at her as her face reddened as she broke into a fit of giggles. "Katie Bell," he scolded in his best Percy voice. "Where'd that come from?"

"I think," she said, holding up a finger to wait as she struggled to get her giggling under control, "from the mead. I like the mead, you should try the mead, it's goblin-grade mead-"

"That's the fourth time you've said mead."

"Funny that, I've had four glasses of mead. Took long enough for you lot to finish pictures, while we hopped around waiting for dinner. Where's your date?"

"Didn't bring one. Where's yours?"

"Lee's convincing the band to let him get up and sing with them."

George tilted his head at her. "Has he also been at the mead?"

"Nah," Katie said, flicking her hand dismissively. She beamed. "He's been at the nettlewine. What is it with you and not bringing dates to things?" she demanded, switching subject.

He frowned, confused. "What other thing are we talking about?"

"Yule Ball. Heard you didn't bring anyone to your oldest brother's wedding, either."

George thought. "Those," he said slowly, "were a very long time ago."

"Not so long. And Harry and Ginny's, too, that was only a year back, and here you are. Still dateless."

He rolled his eyes at her. "The idea," he explained, as if she was very dumb, instead of slightly drunk, "is to dance with other people's dates."

"Oh I see," Katie said quickly, brows arched. "Well. Look here, I'm an other people's date. Wanna dance?" she blurted.

"Seeing as you're an other people's date and all, how could I refuse?" George asked in mock-astonishment. The fake ear twitched.

Katie reached out and up, a question in her eyes that some amusement in his seemed to answer, and tugged on it. It stretched and shot back as she released it, slapping against his head with the sting of a shot rubber band. They stared at each other for a minute and  
broke out into a fit of giggles.

George hadn't remembered he could giggle.

He reached up to the crease where it attached to his real skin and tugged on it. George pulled again and swore. The falsie stayed stubbornly attached. "It won't come off," he complained unnecessarily.

"Let me try," said Katie, reaching up again. She noticed Seamus Finnegan and Padma Patil watching them with keen interest and bit her lip to keep from giggling again. "Come over here," she said, crooking a finger at him with her brown eyes dancing.

He followed. Fleur noticed them departing and attempted to wink, which was one of the few things she was very, very bad at. She lifted Dominique and swept towards Bill. Inwardly George groaned.

They moved away from the music and ducked behind the glitter-spouting statue of an incredibly fat cherub.

She pulled her wand out of a fold in her polka-dotted dress robe, a pocket he hadn't spotted till she reached into it. Lips twitching in the rhythm of a laugh, she lifted it to his ear.

She was very close, he noticed, her chest almost leaning onto his. "Should I be letting you point that at my head?" he asked, adding more sheepishly, "Seeing as you're smashed and all?"

"Trust me," she said, near enough he could smell the honey and alcohol of the mead and a marshmallow scent, maybe from her lip gloss. "I still know what I'm doing."

He saw a trail of blue sparks, like the dying dust of a firework, drift close in front of his eyes, enough to make them water from the light, but felt nothing.

"Tada," she giggled, and the world sounded normal again, no echo and strong on only one side. Katie presented him a wriggling, unhappy ear on her palm like a platter.

He pocketed it beneath the white flower in his buttonhole. "Nice to not be stuck to it. You don't think I should leave it on, so as not to confuse anyone anymore?"

"I didn't think you cared what people thought," Katie said, tweaking his nose, "and it always seemed like you liked confusing everyone, George."

Her finger was still resting on his nose. "Quite right," he said, rather nasally, and leaned through the little space between them to plant a kiss on her lips.

She kissed him firmly back, smacking an extra against the side of his lips between breaths.

"Er," he said dizzily in a bit, rubbing at the sticking feeling of gloss on his face. "One thing."

She smiled giddily at him.

"You're a friend's date, and not only an other people's, so actually stealing you-"

"Friend's friend," she corrected, laughing and shoving his shoulder. "Lee fancies your shop girl. Who's here with your brother. Who-" she added, tugging on his bow tie and pulling him around to glance around the huge statue and through its shower of glitter into the barely unrecognizable backyard. Katie nodded at Charlie, who was filling up punch for his date and not noticing it was sloshing over the rim as he gestured animatedly. "Also fancies your shop girl?"

"Verity."

"Knew that," Katie agreed, lifting her finger and faintly swaying. "Lots of blokes seem to fancy Verity."

He considered. "I don't fancy Verry," he said, feeling it was honest. He really hoped Charlie didn't, either, since the prospect of Verity as sister-in-law was frankly terrifying.

"Oh good," she smiled like a fairy light and stepped back through the glitter. It lit her dirty blonde hair in a shower of gold, and she held out her hand. "Come dancing, George Weasley?"

George thought if Fred had had his wedding, he might have found himself dancing with Katie there. "All right," he said, and took her hand.

He danced carelessly with Katie Bell, watching Percy bend in half trying to dance with his two-year old daughter and Angelina whirl merrily between Lee and Troy. Hermione was badgering Ron back onto the dance floor, though he was trying to watch the finale of a drinking contest between Dean, Seamus and somewhat astoundingly, Neville, who could hold his firewhiskey.

It felt nice to be at his brother's wedding with a pretty girl's arms around him, and though the ear was nice, or at least mostly minded its manners, George had gotten used to his hole.

He would have liked to know what Katie was murmuring alongside the ear-that-wasn't, but as she shifted her head to his shoulder, George felt sure he could ask her later.


	8. VIII

A/N: Yup, an update. I wanted it up yesterday so I could be all "no, I'm not april-fooling you, it's really the super-long and long-delayed Chapter 8!" and... it just did not happen.

Yes, I will someday really finish this story (and probably officially retire from Harry Potter fanfiction when I do). Can't promise when. But I do my best to try and make it worth the wait. ;D

I hope you enjoy, and please review- it means a lot to me. Thank you to everyone who does take the time. :)

* * *

VIII.

Somehow George had thought sharing his life again would be effortless. It wasn't even easy.

Nowadays he opened his drawer and found the yellow socks, or worse, stockings, that Katie had left there to match the spare work robes she kept in his closet. He kept accidentally taking pieces of her winter-mint teeth-flossing gum instead of his favored blue bubblemint. He found himself ogling the pint of Fortescue's Best, butterscotch variety, that she stocked in his Ever-Cold Cabinet. She'd hexed it so he wouldn't finish her ice cream off without asking, but George was pretty sure he could out-maneuver Katie's best jinxes without incurring too much bodily damage.

Katie also never ate alone. She liked company for meals and got it, from her roommate Leanne or her parents or Alicia and Oliver, and particularly now from George. He hadn't followed regular meal times in a long time but somehow he found himself obliging anyways. It helped that Katie could cook without incinerating the pasta or ending up with the potatoes doing an Irish jig when they were meant to be boiling. Her mother was even more of a culinary witch than Katie, maybe even outdoing Mrs. Weasley on her pecan pie, but that didn't make George any more eager to trot over to dinner at Katie's parents.

He knew he was supposed to be happy to have dinner with Katie, if not her mother.

He ought to want to have dinner with his mother, too. He'd been missing her fire calls and hadn't answered the owls lately, or any owls much, really. George was half-expecting a Howler.

He got Percy instead.

Given a choice, he'd have taken the Howler.

"You realize you haven't been by the Burrow in more than a month," Percy said, the light from the pinwheel fireworks display from the shop window glinting ominously off the rim of his glasses.

"It's spiffing to see you too, Perce," said George, waving as Percy waded his way into through the darkened shop, cooing puffballs spilling out the door onto the cobblestones.

Percy frowned at the sea of multi-colored fluff heaving up from the shop floor to cling to his ankles. "What's all this?"

"Pygmy Puffs," said George grimly. "They've revolved." He brandished his wand, which was emitting flame like a very small asthmatic dragon. The Puff, coating the floor like a bad shag rug, rippled uneasily under the heat.

"I don't think you're using the proper context, George," Percy said, eyes locked with cool curiosity on the pink and blue lumps attaching to his pants leg. He shook them off rather professionally. "You might perhaps mean 'revolted', or maybe 'evolved', if you've been talking to Hermione…"

"It's a bit of both," said George, with only a touch of despair as he accidentally crushed another one.

"Have you tried-"

"Vanishing them? They multiply."

"I was going to say Banishing, actually."

"Like I – actually Perce, that's not half bad, why don't you give it a go?"

Percy almost smiled, squinting through the dimness at what he could tell from the tone must be George's innocent face, the one he'd gotten from the twins on each side when they'd blow out his birthday candles before he got the chance and when he'd accused them of sending those baby photos of his to Penelope Clearwater, so very long ago. He expected Banishing the Puffs made them explode or something equally undesirable. With effort, he kept his face stern, something his daughters gave him plenty of practice at. "I'm not that dense."

"Ah, Percy. You're learning." George sighed and picked up a Bouncy Bludger from a nearby shelf, hurling it vindictively into the mass of fuzzy Puff. There was a slightly moist sound, as if someone had sat on a bag of marshmallows.

He stepped closer and Percy stepped back. "Good Lord," he said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "What happened to your face?"

George tried terribly hard not to scowl, since it hurt to scowl at the moment and Katie giggled every time he did. "The Skiving Snackboxes were due for overhaul," he said shortly. "Nosebleeds and fevers don't cut it to get you out of class at Hogwarts anymore."

"What if the students are actually ill?" said Percy with horror, and George remembered his brother used to get nosebleeds with some frequency as a kid. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the things he and Fred aimed at his nose.

"Rough luck?" said George absently, trying to figure what he might transfigure the Puff into and if he could get it to stay changed. The shop could use a new carpet.

Percy's throat bobbed as if he was swallowing words or a cough. "Whatever you've done to yourself doesn't look like anything you should be selling to children."

He got a scathingly scornful look in reply. "Yes," said George, like he was talking to one of his little nieces or nephews. "That's why I test them."

Percy hesitated again, hands twitching, as if unsure what to say. "Can't you- get someone else to test them on?"

The thought had occurred to him. "Turns out they've got laws against that now," he said ruefully, scratching at one of the many thick red scabs spreading from his forehead and down onto his neck. There might have been some on his scalp as well, since that itched too, but it was impossible to tell through his hair. "Which actually is why I'm not talking to Hermione, at all. 'S your fault, you know, encouraging her to go into the Ministry- balmy move if ever there was one."

Percy didn't bother to defend himself, gaping instead as a slab of scab slid off in George's hand, thin strands of ooze still connecting it to his cheek. George broke the strands with a practiced swipe and casually rubbed the ooze against his workrobes. He turned the scab over in his hand before throwing it at the Pygmy-rug experimentally. Immediately it thinned as the Puffs glided away from the scab, which George noted appraisingly before looking back at his very alarmed older brother. "Sorry, Perce, did you ever say what it was you wanted?"

Percy folded his arms defiantly. "You're coming to dinner at the Burrow tonight."

George laughed once. "No, I'm not."

"Oh yes. You are. And already, we sound ridiculous. Must we descend to juvenilia?"

"If you hadn't noticed, I make my living off juvenilia," said George. "Oi, mind your feet, if you don't keep them moving the Puff will pull you under. Not coming, nice to see you, you can leave."

"George," said Percy, managing to sound exasperated and mature even while beginning to perform something of a soft-shoe amid the Puff. "Mum's very worried-"

"Right, and this face is going to make her feel loads better," said George, pointing with his free hand. He'd given up on scourgifying the Puff and was now spraying it with green goop from his wand tip, a silly spell he and Fred had discovered when they were nine and still stealing Charlie's wand. "Not to mention," he yelled, as the collective Puff reared up in angry response, "it'd do wonders for everyone's appetites!"

"I believe it would do you a world of good to get out," said Percy. "I'm afraid you're in well over your head he-"

George, bodily, shoved down the Puff. "Not yet I'm not!"

Percy pushed up his right sleeve, then his left, adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses and shoved his way towards George. "It seems generally benign!"

"What?" said George, gesturing at his good ear with his wand.

"Harmless!"

"Yeah, you'd think!"

"Well, couldn't we simply shove it under or into a, a- somewhere? Non-magically, so it doesn't grow or whatever it is that it does?"

George shrugged, which also pushed off some shaggy pink Puff climbing him up his chest like moss on a brick wall. "More than a two-man job, I'd wager."

"Two men is a start," said Percy firmly. "I'll charge from the left, you hold flank on the- well, where you are."

It was all rather undignified, since it was rather like battling a cotton ball that had swallowed several angry long-haired cats. They sank against it when they shoved or it billowed up behind them, and it kept trying to spread out again, so it took a lot of pouncing around, stomping and getting extremely dirty since that seemed the only way to get the blob to move on its own. Percy wondered what his daughter would say to see her daddy sweating and bouncing on his heels shouting, "Aha! I have you now!" at this globulous variation of her favorite pet.

On second thought, perhaps he had better see about weaning little Molly away from the Pygmy Puff she'd gotten at Uncle George's. He'd have to chat about it with his wife at once.

They'd moved the entire mass of Puff a solid ten feet and gotten into more of a giant lump than a carpet when the bell on the door jangled again.

"We're closed!" George hollered, boxing back a heaving wave of the blue Puff.

"I've brought shovels," said a vaguely familiar voice. Percy paused, trying to place it.

"What, really?" said George, as Percy managed to push enough Puff down to get a good look.

It was Angelina Johnson. She smiled at him, her teeth startlingly white against the dingy lighting of the shop. "Percy," she said, holding out a shovel. "Nice to see you, it's been awhile. I'd have brought more than two of these, if I'd known George already had you giving him a hand."

"I didn't ask for a hand," said George loudly. "Nobody was meant to hear a thing about this slight setback that I have almost under control…"

"And isn't a good thing for you your girlfriend had other ideas," said Angelina composedly, then, with an intake of breath as George's head popped up, "Oh, good God, what've you done to yourself?"

Percy looked between them, intently. "I didn't know you were seeing anyone," he said to George, sharply.

Angelina's expression changed again, quickly. "Oh, I like that," she said darkly. "George Weasley. Someone is going to have to sort you out, and good."

"Yes, precisely!" said Percy.

"See, Ang, you can leave it to Percy- the idea of you 'sorting me out' is a bit perturbing when you're brandishing shovels at me," said George, eyes following said shovels with some apprehension.

She rolled her eyes and tossed one at him. George dodged, reflexively, but remembered he didn't want it hitting the floor in time to reach out and catch it by the wood handle. He immediately switched it to his other hand, moving the one he'd caught it in rapidly up and down as if he could shake off the sting. "You throw too hard," he complained, and caught Percy looking between the two of them, appreciatively, and wondered what that was about. "Percy, I've buckets in the back I was using to test the new technicolor-yawn variety of the Puking Pastilles, if you want to scour those quick, we can collect the Puff with that."

"Oh yes, I would so like that," said Percy, sarcastically enough that George dipped his head at him in acknowledgement. He began to hop his way towards the back as Angelina, with relish, struck at the Pygmy Puff and hefted a squirming square up on her shovel. She looked up and caught George watching and shaking his head at her, and laughed.

"You would enjoy this," George grumbled at her, and she stopped laughing, suddenly surprised.

"Of course I do," said Angelina, "and since when don't you?"

He looked down and shoveled into the Puff-rug with a grunt rather than think about the question.

Not soon enough, Percy came back with the buckets and they took turns heaving the Puff out to the trash bins behind the shop, which they magically sealed. The bins still trembled violently, as George put out the very last bucketful, but now it was the problem of the Retrieval of Magical Waste squad, who George had personally apologized to countless times. They always told him his trash was nothing compared to the stench and magical hazard of what the Bertie Bott's Bean Factory put out weekly.

George reentered through the back door, feeling almost lightheaded, hopefully from the relief of one massive problem and not as a further aftereffect of the Skiving Snacks. The feeling went away quickly as he heard Angelina saying slowly and thoughtfully to Percy, "That actually sounds- nice, I'd like that. I have practice tonight, but I should be able to make it- seven, you said?"

"What's that?" said George, trying to keep his volume in check.

"Angelina's coming to your dinner," said Percy, cheerfully.

"It's not my- that's nice," said George, trying to force good cheer as he noticed Angelina studying his face carefully. He felt his cheek muscle twitching and inwardly begged it to stop, she'd pick up on that in a flash. "Should be a laugh."

"Alright then," said Angelina, rolling her sleeves back down and dusting herself off. "I'll see you both tonight." They proffered the shovels she'd brought towards her. "You hang onto those," she said, grinning, "with your luck lately, you might need them again. Percy," she said, nodding her good-bye, "George." She waved and headed out with a jangle of the shop door.

George leapt for Percy, grabbing his brother's robe collar. If he'd been the taller one he might have resorted to hoisting Percy off his feet. "Why, why, why in the seven hells did you do that?"

"I assumed if your girlfriend was going, then you'd have to come to-"

"Well why didn't you invite her then?!" said George, furious, especially because Percy was wrong. If Percy'd invited Katie, she would've understood, gotten that George really didn't want to deal with everyone at this time this year and not made him go, wouldn't have gone without him, probably, but Angelina, he couldn't tell her not to go, couldn't strand her with his family either, and even if he tried to explain how he felt he didn't suppose she'd let him get away with it.

Percy blinked. "I thought I just did," he said, carefully removing George's hands.

It took him a moment to comprehend, and when it finally hit him, he backed several long steps away. "Angelina?" said George, flabbergasted. "Angelina? You thought-"

"Clearly!"

"No!" George wasn't sure why the idea had hit him so hard, like a Bludger to the chest, but it seemed wrong, it seemed like something he wasn't allowed to think about it- he wasn't sure he had consciously thought about it before. "No! No, no, no- I've been sort of seeing Katie."

Percy looked blank.

George, exasperated, gestured frantically. "Katie Bell, our Katie, Angelina's friend, Katie- "

"Oh," said Percy, finally understanding. "Oh. Oh dear." He pushed his glasses up, then shrugged. "You'll simply have bring Katie as well then."

"But I'm not-"

"Mum was already cooking when I stopped by this morning," said Percy, waving as he backed out the door. "Dinner's served at seven. Oh and George," he added, only his head still in the room and poised to pull out, "…happy birthday." The door, very quickly, clicked shut.

George swore and threw the shovel, which unfortunately spiraled straight into the fireworks shelf and set off the bottled shooting stars. He dropped to the floor, covering his ears.

April really was the cruelest month.

* * *

Weasley family gatherings were becoming a baby brigade. This hadn't ever particularly bothered, much less terrified, George before, but watching Katie scoop up the toddling Louis and return him to Fleur only to turn back to cooing over the latest models, James and Lucy, his waves of panic were rolling in at high tide.

Mrs. Weasley had her namesake bouncing on her knee, but although she was absentmindedly fussing with little Molly's red ringlets and mussed pinafore dress, her attention was elsewhere. "You'll have to refresh my memory, Katie dear, where do you work? I thought I heard the Department of Magical Games & Sports?" asked Mrs. Weasley, who was watching Katie like a hawk that had just spotted a particularly plump, velvety mouse at the end of a lean day. George would've bet every Galleon he'd made that his mother already had them mentally down the aisle. Which was exactly what he'd been afraid of. Terrifyingly enough, George was now officially only two years away from thirty- a decade away from Fred- and while his mother seemed to have surrendered on Charlie, she was plainly determined not to have two of her sons commit only to the bachelor life.

Between the babies and bringing a girl home, though, his mother's attention was nicely off his scabby face. He'd gotten rid of the worst of it, with the mild side effect of leaving his cheeks and forehead crimson enough to overpower his hair, but after some brief horror from his mother and ribbing from his brothers everyone'd mostly left him alone about it.

"Nope, I'm not with the Ministry really," said Katie, looking up from where she was crouched in front of James' magically rocking swing. She'd been dangling a piece of her hair for James to pull, but as his tugging became more vehement, she had to work to hide her winces. "I'm a cursebreaker, but I work freelance jobs for the Ministry quite a lot."

"Oh, like Bill," said Mrs. Weasley delightedly. "I wonder why I thought you were with the sports Department…"

"Most of what I handle is with them," said Katie, unable to take the abuse to her scalp anymore and trying to detach herself from James' sticky fingers. "You'd be surprised how many cursed objects get send to the League teams yearly- especially the Cannons-"

"They're going to do it this year," interrupted Ron, who was listening as he sliced another piece of candied ham for himself. "The Cannons are on a roll."

"Downhill, if I've anything to say about it," said Angelina, the dainty little Dominque Weasley dangling from her arm. Angelina swung her back and forth a bit, as if Bill and Fleur's middle child weighed nothing more than a feather, which, George reflected, she hardly did. She took a seat and pulled Dominque casually onto her lap. "We're playing them Sunday at Portree."

"Oh, you still play?" said Fleur, surprised, trying to keep squirming and complaining Louis in his seat. "I would've thought you to 'ave retired around ze same time as Ginny."

"No reason to," said Angelina airily. She looked good, thought George, certainly still in peak enough shape to be playing- Godric, they weren't that old- but comfortable. He'd been afraid she'd feel out of place, even more so when she hadn't brought a date- which, he supposed, could've been even more awkward. He'd rushed to make sure Lee Jordan and Verity would be here as well so that Angelina wasn't the only one not paired off. Last he'd heard she was still seeing Troy, but there was no sign of him. "Not that I intend to stick around until they cart me off- I'll leave that to Oliver Wood- but I'd like to think I've got several more good years on the field."

"Sure, if Harry hadn't knocked me up, I'd still be out there with you," said Ginny off-handedly.

Harry and Arthur Weasley simultaneously choked; Percy reached for a glass of water; Ron stood up so quickly he knocked over his chair and very nearly toppled into his very pregnant wife. Bill, who was feeding Louis mushed peas, spooned the food straight onto the toddler's nose. George just snickered into his napkin.

"Kidding," said Ginny wickedly. "April Fool's and all."

Everyone, able to breathe again, broke out laughing, except the still-coughing Harry, but half the room engaged in some quick mental math that kept them wondering.

"Katie," called Bill from the other end of the table, dabbing peas off Louis' face while trying to segue into a smoother topic. "I heard you're in curse-breaking as well? I don't see much of the business beyond Gringotts' internal jobs."

Katie smiled. "There hardly is a curse-breaking business beyond Gringotts- well, not a legitimate one, anyway," she amended, lips compressing to keep from giggling.

"Did you train in Egypt at all?" asked Bill enthusiastically, which surprised everyone, since Bill didn't bring it up much, his time spent in the dry and grainy air cracking caves and underground chambers in pyramids along the muddy Nile. He'd been all dash and dare then, wearing his long hair to look like a hellion, not to distract from scars that looked like hell. Everyone had adjusted to them, Bill especially, and he was simply Papa to his kids, but that didn't keep baby James from wailing or Molly from clinging to her mother's legs when their Uncle Bill came into view.

"I haven't really done any work with ancient curses," Katie said, shaking her head, "though I've been looking into taking this post in Assyria to get some of the ancient Sumerian and Babylonian-"

"Oh so that's why you've been looking into traveling," said Ron sagely, nodding at George, who fought the impulse to groan.

Everyone in the room old enough to understand stared at him, even Victoire, who blurted out, "Uncle George is leaving?!" with the dread only a seven-year-old could muster.

Katie looked understandably confused, as this was the first George had heard of any post out of the country and the first she'd heard of George looking into traveling. Angelina didn't bat an eyelash.

"I didn't think Assyria existed anymore," murmured a low, pleasant voice from the other side of the table, and George thanked the heavens for Audrey. Percy's wife, who was a Muggle, had on the expectantly bemused face she ended up wearing to every family gathering. Audrey'd grown accustomed to magic being casually used to pass dinner plates or for the occasional midair clashing of picnic tables, but it never ceased to entertain her.

Percy, instantly, jumped into an explanation of how the ancient fall of Nineveh had a significantly lesser impact on wizarding hierarchy and how the magical world had distinguished those borders entirely disparately from Muggle governments for more than a millennium… only to be interrupted by Hermione, who objected to the notion that the borders were 'entirely' disparate and as pregnant as she was, seemed more dangerous in debate than ever.

"Has- " George started to say, but found he had to pause for a swig of his water to loosen his throat, since he hadn't actually spoken since his Mum brought the food out. There was enough family around nowadays to be loud that he could get away with being quiet for a while, even, apparently, at his own party. It was nice, really. For a few years there everyone looked at him strangely if he kept his mouth shut for five minutes, so he'd gotten used to habitually jabbering on enough for two. "Has anyone seen Lee or Verity?"

"He was showing her the gnomes," said Angelina, while giving Katie a very direct look.

Katie wasn't following. "Is that a euphemism?"

Ron snorted. "In Lee's dreams," he said, as Victoire crinkled her nose and opened her mouth to ask, "What's a u-fem-"

"I think I might go look for them," said George quickly, "before they miss dinner entirely, much less cake-"

"Ow," said Katie, jumping and glaring across the table at Angelina. George surmised she'd been kicked, and didn't envy her; as he remembered from Hogwarts, Angelina could kick hard. "Well, we'll help you look- won't we, Angelina?"

"I'm fine here," said Angelina daintily, lifting her fork, and when Katie kicked her back, her face barely twitched. "But if you insist," she said reluctantly. "I'm sure we'll be right back," she added, as both women rose to their feet.

George, hastily, led them both out . "No, I haven't been planning on tailing you to Assyria," he said sarcastically as soon as they were into the kitchen and out of earshot, "before you ask. And honestly, Assyria? Kates, if you needed space, you might as well go whole hog and make for Australia-"

"George," said Katie in a knowing tone, "this won't be easy for you to understand, but everything I do isn't about you- "

"…I'll be actually looking for Verity and Lee," said Angelina, not-so-subtly moving to go, but George grabbed her arm.

"Oh I wouldn't," he said quickly, "because with how the two've them have been lately, it's a safe wager that actually was a euphemism."

"Lee and Verity?" said Angelina, her brows lifting, while Katie tilted her head and said thoughtfully, "You didn't mention that to me either."

He shrugged. "It's a guess- granted, an educated one- but I'm not really hankering to make sure. So I'd stay put."

"Didn't sound like you'll be staying put," said Katie, looking more amused than George anticipated. He thought she'd be railing at him or hexing him six ways from Sunday.

"I have been looking into getting a bit out of the country," he admitted, under scrutiny from both sides. "Looking into some expansion, get some inspiration. Small trip… oh, y'know, Brazil, the Caribbean, definitely Canada, ah, obviously continental Europe, as far as Greece at least, though I'm not ruling out India, Russia, oh, and Charlie'd murder me if I didn't hit up Romania…"

Katie held up one hand while covering her face with the other. Anyone else would have probably assumed she was stricken, but it was clear to George and Angelina she was combating the giggles, and losing. Angelina put her hands on her hips on Katie's behalf. "And you were going to mention this…?"

"Well before I left, at any rate," muttered George.

"Well-before you left or well, before you left?" Angelina had brought out her Captain voice, which emphasized the comma almost frighteningly well.

"One or the other," he said. "And oi, don't forget about Assyria over there…"

Katie took a deep, giggle-free breath. "I'd only be there a few months. Small trip, mm?"

"Sounds rather epic," Angelina agreed.

George threw up his hands in defeat. "It should! It was supposed to be! Fred and I might not have trotted off to Egypt or Romania or who knows, Mon-flippin'-golia, straight off, but it's not like we weren't counting on seeing the world!" They'd hoped the war would be done and someone, Verity maybe, trained and trusted enough to mind the shop so they could take off for a while at twenty-one, have another great big adventure. George had been putting it off for seven years, but the trip was never going to come off the way they planned it, and if he just kept waiting, sooner or later he wouldn't be up for an adventure anymore.

"I never knew that," said Angelina steadily, after exchanging a look with Katie.

"Yeah, well," said George. "We never were much for letting anyone in on our schemes till they were ready, now were we? Maybe that isn't the best way to go about it," he said grudgingly, "but it was our way, and it's still mine. It makes it feel like mine, when I keep it quiet. And it's a sight less embarrassing when it's the idea no one knew about that backfires, as opposed to the one everyone was waiting for. Remember the Triwizard Tournament?" he said, miming a beard length with his hand and seeing their eyes light in response.

"How could we forget?" said Katie, with a small laugh. "And I'm not bothered, really," she added, which surprised George and Angelina both, "you were the one fussing-"

"I was n-" George stopped himself, considering. "Ah. I suppose I was. It's just- you realize my Mum's having dragon kits what with finding out I'm actually seeing someone. I don't quite know what'd do to her if it ended on the same day like it was all one big April Fool's."

Katie's eyes widened. "Oho, is that what you're doing," she said, ribbing Angelina, whose expression was going cross. "Breaking it off?"

"No!" said George quickly, visions of Katie throwing his mother's conveniently in-reach china at him running through his head. Or worse, getting Angelina to throw it for her- the professional Quidditch player had much more deadly aim. "Er- well- if we're both going away, possibly- a break?" He winced, shutting his eyes and peeking out through slits.

Angelina sighed, staring up at the ceiling as if an explanation for how she'd ended up standing in the middle of this was written on it. "How is he twenty-eight?" she asked, apparently of the universe. George didn't think that was especially fair, as Angelina'd turned twenty-eight first, and she was the one kicking people in the shins.

Katie stepped closer, then reached up and smoothed his forehead with her hand, running it down his face to squeeze his shoulder once. "Let's go have some cake," she said, when he looked at her in surprise. "We'll have time to talk later." She hesitated. "Don't let it get to you, George- it's just a birthday. The year, that's been a pretty good one, hasn't it?"

She wasn't wrong. He wasn't drinking anymore, that was a big one. The business was booming with demand, which was why he was trying so hard to come up with new supplies. The Burrow was filling up with grandchildren as quickly as a rabbit's, which meant he got to be Uncle George some more, which was a real lark. And he and Katie, he wasn't sure where it was going or able to work out what he felt, but he knew she was fun and buoyant and she meshed with him well, at least with the part of him that was whole. She didn't push him, which he loved… except that he was starting to suspect he needed pushing, or at least to start pushing himself. "It's been a pretty good year," he said, at last.

Victoire pushed into the kitchen, hopping up and down, with her little sister on her heels. "S'il te plait, Uncle George, may we have your cake yet?"

"S'il te plait?" repeated Dominique, bottom lip out in a pretty pout.

He crouched, and with a wink, nudged her lip back into place with his thumb. "How can I refuse the prettiest girls in the world?" asked George playfully, scooping up Dominique as Katie let Victoire usher her back in, determined as the little girl was to get everyone seated so there would be cake. He looked over his shoulder at Angelina and raised his eyebrows. "Don't tell me I have to get rid of your pout too."

She stiffened her shoulders. "I'm hardly pouting," said Angelina, shaking her head. "It's only… I like you with Katie."

"I like me with Katie too," said George.

"You might show it more then! You seem sa- …good, with her. I don't want to see you spoil it with this, what, backing away because you're not ready-"

That hit a little too close to the chest. "You're like a dress rehearsal for my mother." George made a silly face at Dominique, which made her laugh in delight.

Angelina didn't find it so funny. "I'm not your mother. But like her, I- everyone- like to see you happy."

"I know," he said, through the gritted teeth of a big smile. "That's why I try so damn hard." Dominique's eyes went wide at the bad word. "So what sort of cake is it, Minnie?" George asked her in a quick stage whisper, to distract her from getting him into trouble with Bill and Fleur, and then like the magician he was, he went back out to give his favorite audience the best show he could manage.


	9. IX

_A/N: (I'm alive! Further details on profile if you want 'em). Still J.K.'s world, still just playing in it._

_I badly need to go back and make some editing/formatting to the earlier chapters. Will try to get around to that before next update._

_If you can't for the life of you remember what this story was about: George without Fred, a story for each year to the epilogue, or just about. And this chapter, George is seeing the world a little (I apologize in advance for the awful French accents; this is not how I would write a French accent; I just spent a lot of time trying to imitate how J.K. did so. To mixed effect.). _

* * *

IX.

The last time George set foot in another country, he was fifteen years old, visiting Bill in Egypt. That trip had also been his first time outside Great Britain (except Ireland, but George didn't count that). The year before that, he and Fred had gotten halfway across the Channel during one of their early jaunts in the flying Ford Anglia but turned back to beat the sunrise to the Burrow.

Charlie had wanted George to go to Romania right after Fred died. 'The mountains would do him good' or some rot, as if the fresh air could fill up his holes. George stayed home instead, digging up all the slapdash Fred-and-George projects that had never come together and trying to see them through. Those early months, he kept in his mother's sight lines as much as he could bear, and when he couldn't, escaped to the shed, where his father put all his grief into piecing Sirius Black's flying motorbike back together. Arthur Weasley was a man who could be quiet, and so he was the only person, besides Harry Potter, who George felt it was all right for him to be quiet around, instead of trying to fill the seeping silence with running babble, to assure everyone he was all right, he'd live and all.

They'd had the motorbike in its altogether and shining come Christmas of that first year, to give back to the boy who'd saved the wizarding world, with a little help from his friends.

It was odd, to think of how long ago that was now. Because that was After Fred. And Fred never seemed long ago.

George refused to believe he ever would.

The motorbike, though, he'd all but forgotten. Harry had made a point of telling George and Mr. Weasley it would come in incredibly handy in his early Auror missions, even though they hadn't restored all the button features Mr. Weasley had so excitedly included when he'd prepped it for the run from Privet Drive. George wasn't sure how long it had taken for the joy of fixing and inventing things to come easily to his father again. It had taken George several years, locked up in his shop, for trying to create something funny to actually be fun again.

George kicked down the ratcheting lever of Harry's motorbike. His brother-in-law had offered it in loan for the haphazard world tour George had not-quite-planned, and George hadn't hesitated to accept it. Harry may have made use of it in his brief bachelor days at 12 Grimmauld, but for years now the motorbike had simply sat as a sentimental monument in the Potter family garage…and Harry had always been more at home on a broomstick anyhow, never really wanting roar and ruckus.

The motorbike finally kick-started with a rumble, smoke churning out the exhaust pipe. George grinned, toeing the shift lever into the right gear and giving the bike some throttle.

He lifted off into the waiting night, taillight winking goodbye to home.

* * *

Cast in the lights from the surrounding lower town, the stone walls of Caracassone looked almost white from a distance. The blue of the turrets made the fortified town look like an enchanted castle straight out of Beedle the Bard, low, long, seeming almost dainty compared to towering Hogwarts.

George had brought the bike to the ground out in the countryside, a mile or so away. He made his approach on the old French roads. He felt more and more at ease as he passed under each squared-off arch of iron set at intervals on the bridge crossing to Carcassone. The metal of the bike caught the light of the old-fashioned Muggle lanterns held in a decorative twist at the top of each arch.

Under the very last arch, Gabrielle Delacour sat shimmering on the side of the bridge looking out over the River Aude. She wore a belted trench coat and fitted bell-shaped hat, both of the palest blue. She did not look over at the sound of the approaching motorcycle.

He pulled over to her side and puttered to a halt. "I like the hat," he said.

She swiveled, even in surprise moving as fluidly as water. "George!" she cried, making the G's of his name sound slushily soft. Before he could even swing his leg properly off the bike, she had flung her arms around his neck, kissed both cheeks, and darted away so she could circle the bike appraisingly.

"Mmm," she said, hands on her hips. "_Que fantastique_. I thought we might take the train to Paris, for zat you might see the countryside, but a _motocyclette_—much, much better. When may I drive?"

"_Can_ you drive?" George said, trying to recover his balance both literally, since he had yet to get both feet on the ground, and figuratively. Gabrielle, twenty now, had grown up a little too well; he pitied the boys of Hogwarts days to come if Victoire and Dominique favored the veela side.

She flashed a pearly smile. "I am a _verry_ quick study."

Oh, he'd bet.

"You know what, I've never much gone for faint heart or denying fair ladies," said George, gesturing grandly. "Take her away, Gabri."

Within a few minutes, George was very glad he hadn't yet told her the motorbike could fly. All that could really be said for her driving was her enthusiasm and that she did figure out how to accelerate. And if George had to put his hands over hers to take over the steering, it wasn't what he'd call a hardship.

* * *

Mercer and Apolline Delacour were frighteningly happy hosts and, though George had been brushing up his non-existent French, eager to practice their English, which had been steadily refining since their daughter married an Englishman.

"Oh, no, no, no, you _must _stay more than a night or two, _s'il te plait_," Apolline said, handing George yet another wine glass in one hand and sending the dessert tray floating before him again with a flick of her wand. "And another macaron, you must- zey are the originals! The macarons of the French Revolution! In _ma famille_, we keep the secret, we keep it pure."

"They're almost too good-looking to eat," George said. "But how could I say no to you, madam?" He took another one of the colored cookies, feeling the slight twinge of disloyalty he always felt when comparing a meal in another house to one in his mother's. Not that he believed a better meal existed than in Molly Weasley's kitchen, but the presentation in Apolline Delacour's, with little flames dancing all around the table and the finest silver on display, was a whole other world.

"No one can say no to Apolline," Mercer Delacour said warmly. Both Delacours insisted on George calling them by their first names; it felt very strange and made George feel a stab of oldness, but at least moving from "Monsieur" to "Mercer" wasn't asking too much. "And she is right. Stay 'ere longer. How did it come to pass that you 'ave not seen our France before? You must 'ave a week, in Carcassone alone, and then, Avignon, all of Provence—a month, for Paris! Gabrielle can tell you everywhere to go."

"Bah, Gabrielle can _show_ 'im," Apolline said. "She is, ah, _en vacances_. You might say, between ze work."

Gabrielle, seated at George's elbow, sipped her champagne. "Do not let my maman make you think me lazy, George Weasley," she said. "I am finding my place, zat is all. Sadly, I receive proposals for marriage, often; for sensational work, _verry _seldom."

"I'm expanding Weasley's Wizard Wheezes internationally, actually, so if you were at all interested, Gabri, we could talk shop later," George said, so automatically he surprised himself.

Gabrielle set the champagne glass down so haphazardly it spun, and George had to reach out to keep it from spilling. She was suddenly looking at him so very intensely he found himself alarmed.

"Oh, George!" Apolline suddenly clapped her hands, and her whole face lit up; George momentarily felt as if he was looking at the Apolline Delacour her husband must have met many years ago. Her hands then flew out in wild movements as she spoke, which only made her the more dazzling. "Of course she would be interested! She 'as quite a brain, our Gabrielle; ze men, zey forget that so easily, with ze women in our line."

"_Maman_," Gabrielle said, a little sharply and a little more embarrassed.

George was now blushing; the full attention of a half-veela like Apolline was a heady thing, even if she was his mother's age.

"Eet ees time for our after dinner stroll," Mercer said, his cheeks aglow too at his wife's delight. He touched her hand, stroking it. "You will 'ave to see the gardens later, George. You should talk, now, and finish the champagne. It ees a good year, is it not?"

"So far," George said, belatedly realizing Mercer meant the bottle. He'd had a few more glasses than he'd meant to; he needed to watch that. He'd been more careful with alcohol, in recent years, sticking to the lighter stuff only.

Mercer held out his hand to his wife and she allowed him to draw her up. Arms linked, they made brief farewell and removed to the garden, silhouettes out the window in the French moonlight, her tall shapely figure leaning into Mercer's rather less impressive one.

Gabrielle, reclaiming her glass and her cool composure, poured them both more champagne with an air of relief. "Zey are not verry discrete," she said.

"They seem _verry_ happy," George said, catching himself mimicking her accent. He resolved to cut it out.

"No, seelly," Gabrielle said. George eventually translated that as "silly," as she let out a light laugh. "In trying to, ah, pair us off."

"Us?" he said, startled. "In the sense of employment? That's logical enough—"

"In the sense of romance," Gabrielle said smoothly.

George coughed on his champagne. "Now that is seelly," he said, correcting, with an extra cough, "Silly. I'm old—"

"Bah, you are not thirty," Gabrielle said, waving it off.

"—we're practically related—"

"We are not, though," Gabrielle said. As George simply stared, she added, "My parents like you, they like your family, to them, as you say, ees logical enough." She let out a peel of laughter at his expression and kept giggling into her champagne flute as she said, "Tell me more, George, about thees 'international expansion' of yours."

"It's more 'gradual world domination,' really," he said, resuming his comfortable tone. But to be on the safe side, he set down his champagne.

* * *

Gabrielle was not only an excellent tour guide, but something of a tonic. George could not remember the last time he'd had a true flirtation, no serious undercurrent, just teasing and coy glances and laughs with no expectation on either end. It was how things used to be, for him, but he hadn't found it in England in years, even when he tried in Muggle bars (there was always questions about the ear, and he never felt comfortable wearing the stupid falsie.)

He did, in fact, remember his last real flirtation, with a lurch, over chocolate croissants with Gabri in Paris. Verity, of course; Verity who he and Fred hired more for the lark of a pretty, slightly older girl working for them than for need of help, Verity who'd stayed upbeat through every shop chore and flirted back with remarkably good humor. Verity who tried so hard and so nervously to help George when he first went back to the shop alone, Verity who then seemed so underfoot and mawkish he had fired her without a thought. That was… not well done of him. Verity had never had quite the magic she needed for Hogwarts, though she'd gotten home-training; the job meant the world to her. And his lousiness was compounded in that he'd slept with her, for the one and only time, that same week.

Of course, Verity ran his Hogsmeade branch now; business replies to Verity, along with postcards for the nieces and nephews, were the only correspondence George had sent out on his vacation so far. Beyond rehiring and promotion, every form of apology and years, now, stood between now and then, but chariness, on both sides, lingered. They were friends, more of an 'at last' than an 'again', but the old lightness between them was lost, forever.

"George," Gabri said, reaching over the café table with a napkin and a smile, "you have chocolate, everywhere."

"My chin isn't everywhere," George protested but let her dab his face clean.

She tapped his chin before leaning back. "So solemn, Monsieur Weasley," she said. "_Denier_ for your thoughts?"

"You put me in mind of another smart blonde," he said, trying for a devilish grin. (Fred was always better at those. Even with the extra years for practice, George still felt he couldn't match it).

"If it ees smart blondes you favor," Gabrielle said, tapping her fingers on her coffee cup, "remember, my cousins live in Paris. You 'ave met them. "

"The _veela_ cousins?" George said. "From your seest—_sist_er's wedding? I think I'd remember if you mentioned that."

"Did I not?" she said innocently. "Who did you think we were meeting for drinks, for the shopping?"

"More of your friends." They'd been crashing on futons of her school friends throughout the countryside, in Lyons, in Orleans. Gabrielle Delacour was a popular girl.

"My cousins, zey are also my friends," she said. "…To, ah, a point. You will see, this afternoon."

"Today?" George said. "Give a fellow more of a bracing period next time. A pack of ladies with beauty like yours might just boil this poor aging wizard's English blood."

"Not so poor, not so aged. The English blood, I cannot help you there, and if the countryside of France has not braced you for beauty, nothing will," Gabrielle said. She adjusted her hat. "But watch your tongue. In every sense. My cousins are more, ah, pure veela than me. Provoked, zey will bite."

George raised an eyebrow. "As if you wouldn't."

She flashed her pearls. "Ah, George. You are beginning to know me well."

* * *

After their morning meal, she took him about the city, from the Eiffel Tower, since it had to be done, to the Champs-Elysees.

Then they started shopping, in tiny alleys still secretly tucked amid the widened boulevards, in bits of old Paris still hidden behind the new. George did not even mind the occasional clothes shop. It came from not having finer things growing up, he supposed, how much he liked dapper jackets and well-fitted dress robes, and he had a soft spot for strange ties and funny hats. Mostly, though, he was taking notes at the potioneers and eyeing the novelty shops with a critical eye and attention to French humor. He thought his line of masks, allowing for brief mistaken identity, not lasting long enough to commit a crime or get particularly naughty, might go over well.

He was getting Gabrielle's opinions on ridiculous hats when a fluting voice rang out.

"'Ello! _Poil de carotte_!"

"Here zey come," Gabrielle said. George turned.

Three women carrying bags were sweeping toward them down the broad avenue, drawing dramatic attention in their wake. They wore small, stylish hats like Gabrielle's, but George remembered them in far more dramatic toppers, decorated with enchanted birds and fancy flowers. They did not appear to have aged a day since Bill and Fleur's wedding.

When he was twenty, George had thought them sophisticated and mature. At eight-and-twenty, he saw them as barely older than Gabrielle, women only just flitting past their teenage years. In reality, they were probably twice his age.

They stopped before him and Gabrielle, posing imperiously. "I remember you," the one in the middle said throatily. "It was Fred, no?"

"No," said George.

Gabrielle said something in hasty French that George couldn't follow, looking over at him sharply, but George found himself smiling. No one had called him Fred in years.

"No, zis was one was mine," the veela on the right said, tossing her shining hair. "Ze other one had _both_ his ears."

"Ah, yes. I remember it well."

George, trying not to laugh, dug through his memory. "Selphine?" he said to the one who had claimed him. He glanced at the other two. "And…I seem to be so blinded by your presence that I find myself at an utter loss."

"'Appens all the time," the veela on the left said with a dismissive wave. "Gabrielle, introductions."

Gabrielle arched her brows, which appeared less silvery and simply ash blonde in contrast to her full-blood relatives. They practically glowed. "George. My cousins, Aurore, Helaine, and Selphine—who I theenk you recall well enough."

"Mesdemoiselles, it is criminal how long I've gone without experiencing your radiance."

Gabrielle scoffed.

George turned his head toward her, mouthing "Too much?"

She signaled 'a smidge' with her thumb and forefinger.

"Let us 'ave drinks," Selphine announced. "You may carry our bags, George."

"I'm so honored," George said drolly, as the veela cousins handed over their shopping. He was still impressed by their beauty, but perhaps because he'd gotten used to the Fleur effect years before, he was not _that_ impressed.

* * *

Their company startled the hell out of the customers of a burger bar. George trailed in the wake of the ladies, who strolled right to the back and opened up an out-of-order restroom door that actually led to a café that looked like it hadn't changed in two hundred years. Gabrielle explained it dated back to the plotting of the1832 wizarding riots, barely covered up by a small Muggle insurgence, which led directly to establishment the present French Ministry's first incarnation.

"Not married," Selphine observed, lifting his hand; while Helaine, who had wandered off with Fred so many years ago, inquired something of Gabrielle in French.

"Oui, a Katie?" Gabrielle, with a look at George, clearly kept to English for his benefit. He resolved to modify that false ear of his to provide translations. "Zey are on a break."

There was a chorus of "bahs" to the break, while Aurore asked, eyes narrowed, "Is he for you, Gabrielle?"

Gabrielle shrugged, mildly, throwing up her hands dismissively. All three of the cousins pressed suddenly closer.

"I feel I ought to be alarmed," George said, over their silvery heads, "but somehow I can't quite muster up the fear."

"Zat would be the veela pheromones," Gabrielle said, very dryly. "If men could fear us, how would we catch them?"

"The sewers, tonight, for you," Selphine announced.

"Plan to use me up that quickly, do you?" George said. Gabrielle wasn't wrong; it really was difficult to muster even a jolt of concern.

"Non, non," Helaine said, her lips so against his ear George wondered what Fred would think, "the best of the dancing, it is all under ze ground."

"You dance divinely," Selphine purred. "I remember zat well."

Perhaps he was a smidge concerned. And he'd never felt more out of dancing practice.

* * *

The surprisingly high-ceilinged sewer clubs of Paris—they went to three—lived up to everything the veela cousins promised and then some. There were steaming drinks floating overhead that would plummet into one's hand after he paid—and George paid for all the girls' drinks, all night. Gabrielle did try to insist on getting a round but he told her the very thought offended him. It did, in fact, since he knew, despite the fine dining silver and grand old house, the Delacour family was not flush in fortune; the Triwizard Tournament money of bygone days would have meant nearly as much to Fleur back then as it had to him and Fred.

There were dancers with tattoos that writhed along with them, a Greek stag party who all seemed to have some satyr blood, pounding remixes of old Hobgoblin songs, and wall graffiti that glowed in time to the beat. Selphine took off with one of the Greeks— so much for nostalgia— but to George's surprise, the other three seemed content to be twirled and spun in by just him. Gabrielle taught him the Charleston and some other twenties dances she'd picked up at a dance hall that had never quite left that decade; they'd go there tomorrow night, she said. George ended the evening surprisingly sober, but with Gabrielle's bell hat on his head nonetheless.

Gabrielle was a little less sober, her accent thicker under the alcohol. "You could have gone 'ome with Aurore," she said, as they walked arm-in-arm up out of the exit along the Seine and crossed a bridge to their boutique hotel, adjoining rooms. "She never ends a night before seex in the morning. You saddened her, I theenk."

"I try not to sadden anybody. I'm in the opposite business, you know."

"I was a leetle girl then, I do not remember," Gabrielle said, abruptly and seemingly apropos of nothing. "'Ow you were, once. But I 'ave seen pictures, and 'ow your brothers are. For a joking man, your eyes do not smile. Never, never—"

At this point George had to grab Gabri's waist to keep her from toppling out of her heels and into the river; he kept a better grip on her as they kept walking.

"Really, never?" he said. He meant to say it lightly but some anxiety bled through.

"Eet es irony, I theenk," she said. "The funny man, who ees never happy—irony, no?" She frowned up at him, reaching out to touch his clenching jaw. "I was not trying to sadden you, either."

"Sometimes the truth is the real joke," George said. "Even horrible things are funny, from the right angle. Laughing at them's no different, except for the bad taste it leaves in your mouth."

Her hand slid from his jaw to cup his face, and George stopped walking.

"Would it help to kiss me?" she asked, in a very thoughtful tone of voice.

George thought about it. And then he thought some more. He was pretty sure there was far too much thinking going on. Between the moonlight glinting off the Seine and shimmering on every fine strand of Gabrielle Delacour's fair hair, he shouldn't have been thinking at all.

"I can't say it'd _hurt_," he said, too late. Her hand already drifted off his face, and up, to reclaim her hat.

She took his hand and leaned back against him with an "Mmm." And they walked the rest of the way back to the hotel in companionable silence, where he showed her to her room and went to his own.

He lay awake for a few hours, feeling very old and wondering if Fred would have kids by now, and how many, and what names. George, of course, had no doubt who Fred would have had kids with.

Fred would have married first. (Fred always did things first, and faster, and let George do the extra thinking.) And maybe, since in some small ways he'd still have lost Fred, to his new family, George would still have come to Paris and gone dancing with Gabrielle Delacour and thought her too young and gorgeous for him but not cared. That George, thought this George, would probably have eloped on the spot and brought Gabri home to show her off, like a new dragon hide jacket. He'd have very easily made her happy, since that George would have been a happy guy. It would have been very easy for that George to be happy with her, young, stunning, charming, everything any bloke would want. And he already knew how stunning Delacour-Weasley progeny turned out.

George got up, opened his suitcase and his room service tray from breakfast, and spent a few hours inventing trick silverware that fired food into the face of the person trying to eat it, at varying velocity depending on the food type. He eventually fell asleep on the hotel room floor, surrounded by cutlery, a wand in each hand.

* * *

A week later George let Gabrielle fly the motorbike to the Switzerland border. They did not get arrested and she didn't crash, even though her tendency for sudden dives and midair donuts probably shaved a decade of his life.

"I 'ope you are serious about opening the shop 'ere, and not going to forget all about me after you leave, Monsieur," Gabrielle said, by way of farewell. "How you say, ah— we have a verbal contract about my job, and you never want to enter a game of vengeance with a part-veela. It ees known."

Somehow, George found Gabrielle's ruthless side her most flattering. "Find the right property to place 'Weasley et Weasley, Farces pour Sorcier Facetieux,' and Verity will wire you all the funds needed for acquisition. No hustle required. Me, myself, is out of the business till this time next year."

"For a trip of pleasure, your mind is still much on the business," Gabrielle commented. "Work on that, George."

He would miss those slushy G's she gave his name. "It's easier with you, you know. You could come along with me to Romania, you know."

Her eyes narrowed. "Somehow, that does not sound like an invitation."

George shrugged, leaning against the motorbike. "It is if you like."

"With me about, you would not embark on _aventures_," Gabrielle said. "I have seen that, these weeks past. If _I_ was your _aventure_ _passionee_, per'aps then. I did theenk—but no. We do not suit like that, do we, George?"

He grinned. "If I was seven years younger, and a bit better-looking—"

"Pffft. You are—how you say, a catch. 'Andsome, wealthy—"

"How fast Galleons make a girl overlook the lack of an ear." George winked.

"It ees a mark of bravery," Gabrielle said sternly.

"More a mark of bad aim—"

"Men with scars are _sexy_."

George laughed. "Maybe we ought to rethink this not-suiting thing—"

"I do not stay where I am not 'appy for long," Gabrielle interrupted, "and I frustrate too easily. Trying to make you happy— I theenk it would break my heart. I could, of course, 'ave seduced you and broken_ your_ heart. But then my seester would break my head."

"She'd break a lot more of me," George said. And then Bill would break what was left of him. He could have gotten away with marrying Gabrielle Delacour, but not with messing around with her. He liked her too much for that, anyway.

She laughed like silver and tossed her hair. "Visit more. I 'ave many more friends from school 'oo would appreciate meeting a war hero." Gabrielle winked back at him. "Zey appreciate men with Galleons, too."

She kissed his cheeks in goodbye; he left her with Verity's address, some sample WWW products from his suitcase, and love to Victoire and Dominique and Louis, since she'd probably see him before he did. Then he turned on the bike's invisibility booster and took off over the mountains.

* * *

Charlie came down on his weekend to meet George early, in Crete. After a night carousing through the bars, they caught up in George's expansive beachfront hotel room. George tossed a ball of yarn from hand to hand while Charlie rummaged curiously through his business suitcase.

Charlie raised an eyebrow when he pulled out a bow and arrow, pulling back the string to test.

The bow and arrow were from Norway. The bow had runes so it would never miss; the arrows were runed to never hit. It made each shot a hazard to life, limb, and everything damageable within six miles. A trick Quidditch set, with runes hidden on Bludgers and Quaffles, was already blooming in George's mind, along with the suspicion those sets might raise concerns from the Department of Games & Sports. George regretted not taking Ancient Runes back at Hogwarts, when everything he was actually interested in had come so easily. It had seemed like so much boring work back then, not something he'd want to put to use later, until he was actually in the Nordic countries himself. There was so much potential there: one giant rock rune in Denmark hid _an entire fjord_, that translated as the Cunning Place, home to one of Europe's oldest all-wizarding villages.

Charlie went through George's pile of multi-colored_ brevi_ bags, from Italy. (George hadn't exactly taken a direct route from France.)

"Don't touch the black ones," George warned, looking up from his yarn.

"Not presents for the kids, I take it?" Charlie asked, watching sparks fly up the gold bag. He'd be touched with a bit of extra luck tonight—nothing like Felix Felicis, but not too shabby, either.

"Not these ones," George said, "though I sent a protective one to Ron, for Rose's cradle." He'd planned his departure for just a couple months after Rose's birth, not just to see the baby himself but to make sure he left when Ron would have time to keep an eye on the shop again.

"Ron with a baby," Charlie said, his hands stilling. The last time he'd gotten home was Ron's wedding, when James Sirius Potter was still the latest model off the Weasley tree. "Somehow that's even stranger to think about then Ginny with one. Two, pretty soon."

"The baby brigade marches on," George said wryly.

Charlie shook his head and pulled out George's stacks of Belgian and Swiss chocolate. "What will this lot turn me into?"

"A happier person," George said. He threw the ball of yarn across the room; it spooled out, yards and yards off the stuff coming off it. He tugged on the end of it and it rewound. There was enough of the stuff to leave a trail through most of Hogwarts castle, never mind a labyrinth.

"And it's not part of your U-No-Poo line?" When George shook his head no, Charlie, without further thought, popped a piece of the Belgian chocolate into his mouth. His eyes widened as he realized George had answered literally. "Is this Cheering Charmed?" he asked, pointing at his full cheeks. "I thought you'd knocked off using those."

"I have," George said. "This is Fortifying Chocolate. Remedy-plus. About to take a test? Feeling dark blue? Running for your life? Need a boost to conjure that Patronus? Grab a Wheezy Bar."

"Name needs work," Charlie said. He took another piece of chocolate, poking at the suitcase again. "But good stuff. Hey, is this the cursed bracelet you wrote me about, the one that expands a fellow's—"

"Gloves on before handling that," George said. It was an ancient witch's curse for an unfaithful lover, one that insured, very creatively, he would not be sowing wild oats again. It was impressive magic, a rather hilarious punishment that twisted wish fulfillment to work against its subject; it was also very difficult to break and ultimately cruel. It was not _quite _as disturbing as the potions behind the conception of the Minotaur, which George had investigated this past week, but equally, it was very interesting magic George had no idea how to use in a nice way, let alone an entertaining one. Yet, anyhow.

Charlie used one of George's spare robes to push the bracelet far away from him. "You really do have a hell of a mind," he remarked. "Just think, if you ever took an interest in dragon breeding, what you could—"

"Sounding like Mum," George sang out. "But more bent on dragons."

Charlie made a face which, in fact, was an exact mirror of their mother's displeased expression. "All right, all right," he said. "But next time you're trying to come up with merchandise that sells, remember, _dragons_. Dragons are the height of cool."

"You've been saying that for as long as I can remember," George said affectionately. Charlie always wanted dragon toys and read dragon books and talked about applying dragon-flight principles and hunting patterns to Quidditch games— that last part, even Oliver Wood thought was a bit out there.

Charlie grinned. "It's still true. You'll see, back at the sanctuary. If anyone in the family were to get it, I reckon it'll be you."

George, surprised, hoped Charlie was right.

Charlie gruffly cleared his throat and turned back to the suitcase. "Is this a crystal ball?"

"Oh, yeah. I plan to reinvent them…"

* * *

A week later, George's bare arms and his face felt sunburned and were turning bright red, from the heat of the air around dragon fire. He had his wand out and held over his head, controlling an invisible leash around the neck of one of the Romanian Longhorns circling miles overhead. Injured dragons, as they healed, needed flight time, a controlled amount each day before they were fully released back into the preserve. They also tended to be, as Charlie put it, "a mite snappish." It was a Hagrid-level understatement.

"Glorious, isn't it!" Charlie hollered, his own face an even shinier, brighter red. His hands were blistering. His own dragon, a young buck with still-healing bite wounds from a fight with a larger Horntail, kept dive-bombing him.

George had never in his life seen his older brother look happier, not even after Gryffindor's brilliant victory over Slytherin in George's first year. Charlie loved, more than anything in the world, these creatures that could kill him as easily as bat one lizard eye. It wouldn't make much sense, to most people. But George had spent enough time working highly explosive material, by hand as well as by want, all for a momentary firework, to understand.

"It sure is something!" George shouted back, jerking his wand to tug his dragon back, before it disappeared into the clouds around the Carpathian range.

After the dragons had been magically leashed together, to be led back to the clearing where the healers kept an eye on them, Charlie stopped George from following the group leaders. "We're skiving off," he said, all mischief even though he'd undoubtedly gotten permission, his boss was right there, "and hiking up this way."

George looked in the direction Charlie pointed. "By hike, did you possibly mean, 'taking our broomsticks because they're right here and I'm joking about climbing a mountain?'"

"I leave the jokes to you," Charlie said. "What's magic but a crutch, if you don't sometimes climb on your own two feet?"

They climbed and talked, about girls Bill had dated and things Ginny had gotten away with behind their backs and all the times they'd been mean to Percy or Ron, about an invitation to visit a Chinese Fireball farm, in China, that Charlie might take some leave to check out, if George was going that way ("Where do you think fireworks came from, Charlie? _Of course I'm going to China_. By way of Bangkok and Budapest and so forth, you do have a lot of leave, don't you?)

And they talked about Fred, in an easy sort of way, all the times he'd taken Charlie's wand and the Muggle prank things he and George had found in the village and sent away for by catalogue, and about the Battle of Hogwarts, again, if George had gone with him, if Charlie had come sooner, if one step had been different.

"It's gone fast, hasn't it," Charlie said. "When I'm home, it does seem a long time since I've lived there. But here? It still feels new to me, and the changes at home feel unreal. As if I were to go home and you'd all still be in school. Bill in Egypt, and Percy a new prefect, and you and Fred blowing things up in your room. I always think of you at thirteen, asking me to smuggle you and Fred to Romania in my trunk."

That was the longest speech from Charlie George had heard in some years, maybe even since the time he had explained why he couldn't take the twins with him to Romania, and how he was counting on them to go finally win Gryffindor the Quidditch Cup.

The air was getting thinner, the higher they went up, but cleaner, somehow, too. It almost hurt going down his lungs, in a weirdly good way.

"We said that for years, you know," George said at last. "'If it all goes bugger up, we can always go bother Charlie in Romania'. It became a joke, but at first we really used to make up what it'd be like. Make up what you'd be doing, bet on whether you'd had any important parts bitten off yet."

Charlie chuckled. "I spent most of the first year mucking up dragon dung, trying not to think about how many people told me I could play Quidditch for England."

George raised an eyebrow. "You ever still think about that?"

"Sure," Charlie said, stopping. He beckoned George out onto a rock plateau. Not far below, dragons were roving through the skies, scales glinting in the sun, larger than hundreds of men. "But I never regret it."

Besides their own breathing, there was no sound but the wind scuffling against the mountain stone and the dragons roaring to each other below. One dove, becoming a small dot plummeting to the ground, and picked something up; George suspected that a sheep was baaing in ultimate terror somewhere down there. But above, it was all mist over hilly green and river blue, stretching all the way up to where the fog slid into cloud. It felt as peaceful as it looked.

"You look happy," Charlie said, with some surprise, and great pleasure. "I told you and told you, the mountains would do you good."

George thought about telling Charlie he was sounding like Mum again. Instead he told him the truth.

"You were right," George said. He took another deep, raw breath. "I should have come here years ago."


End file.
